Finns, Swiss, Malaysia all have late-production jets – the JAS 39E may replace the Swiss jets eventually, but you could still get a decade out of them. And as I understand it, RACR and SABR are (1) less expensive than APG-79/80 and (2) more importantly, easier to install and integrate.

Spud – The SA, I believe, has the same display processor (which in Boeing-world is where the fusion goes on) and BAE DEWS as the SA.

LM did not go to the DoD asking for the schedule to be cut back.

No, and so what? They were so effbombed-up that they didn’t know how late they were. Either that or their top people were lying in every brief they did in 08-09.

The DoD decided to cut the schedule in order to pay for a stretched out SDD timeframe and to lessen the impact of concurrency.

Yes, they did.

They could have poured billions more into 2010-onwards funding (over and above the projected FYDP profile) to pay for more production but did not because (1) LM’s delays and incompetence had increased the concurrency risk and (2) production was late as it was. LM is only just catching up with the schedule for the first time since 2008.

And the GFC had precisely bleep-all to do with it, and nobody in charge has ever said that it had.

Spud – The numbers were from early 2010 and are what the schedule plan was at the time before the recent budget crisis and fear of concurrency caused the annual build rates to be chopped.

So the total failure of the program to execute to schedule in 2007-10 had nothing to do with it?

Actually, the numbers were from Oct 2010. By that time, Venlet’s Technical Baseline Review was well on the way to demonstrating that the point at which FRP could be approved (that is, completion of DT & IOT&E) was much further out than previously claimed, and the idea of US and partner rates hitting 125-150 by late 2014 was clearly moonshine.

Also, note that none of the so-called 4gen fighters is vanishing from the scene as planned.

SC on the Phoon was not a set requirement (thou shalt sustain M>1.X without AB in such a configuration) but a fall-out from supersonic maneuver.

Rii is correct to define it as level flight at M>1.2 without AB. Realistically, fuel load and weapons should be included.

As for direct comparisons, we’ll have to wait a long time. On the other hand, one can readily look at sweep angles, fineness ratios, dry T/W (armed and with comparable fuel fractions) and engine cycles, and conclude that if the JSF can even squeak into the SC category, the Phoon will certainly SC at >1.2.

— T3 tech demonstrator (part of the NGM/JDRADM program) is due to fly this year
— New Motor from ATK with Dual-pulse, new case, new nozzle, etc is due from development this year
— Follow-on dev for 9X Blk3 is already started
— Follow-on dev for 120D+ is already started

Wake me up in another seven years, when some of that dreamy stuff is within another five to seven years of doing something useful, because for some strange reason there is no extra money in the Tacair piggy bank right now.

I suspect that the “F-104S factor” may play against the F-16V. If the whole EPAF could be swung over to a “bridge”, maybe, but that is not going to happen.

Rafale is out of Denmark because the French know that they are not going to win. The same way as Typhoon bailed out of the Netherlands but apparently for different reasons.

Re: HTK

It’s dumb to conflate the plastic-and-PPT Cuda with Stunner/Python 6, which is based on a real, flying-today missile from a proven AAM provider and has a known seeker technology (IIR + MMW AESA) and a known aero-propulsion system that wiill permit some rather fancy endgame moves.