Air dominance?!?!

WTF are they smoking? 😀

Hopefully nothing with all those fuel leWHOOOOF Oh ****.

Spud is correct for once in terms of the shift from gun to PGM for CAS.

But that goes along with the fact that CAS is no longer a platform-centric mission. The important factors are the pilot, the JTAC/JFAC on the ground, the targeting systems that they use, and the weapons.

The aircraft is there to get the pilot, sensors and weapons to the right place.

It stands to reason that if the pilot’s most important tool is the targeting pod, and if situational awareness rules (which it does) then you want to be in a place where you have a good view of the ground, which means over the target – not looking at it from a shallow graze angle at several kms range, setting up for a gun run.

As for weapons, the key is to carry a variety of ordnance – you see a lot of jets flying CAS missions with LGBs, JDAMs and other things. SDB is not very useful as it stands because of its long time of flight. Laser-guided weapons are useful because they can be walked off the target if the situation changes.

Of course, Spud also uses this to boost the F-35, which is plain wrong. Stealth is zero use in CAS, EOTS is not significantly better than what many jets carry today, F-35 endurance is mediocre and weapon diversity is limited. It also has a single engine and inadequate fire protection, in the event of a situation where the enemy may have some pop-up triple-A. Gun or otherwise, the A-10 will be a better CAS jet than the F-35 for many years, and so will pretty much everything else.

BTW Spud – The reason that the A-10 is getting cut is that the USAF had more A-10s than it (or even the Army) needed. Even post-cut, the A-10 fleet – dedicated to CAS – is bigger than most of the world’s fighter forces.

I do not know who ‘LowObservable’ is, but the evidence from his postings on this and other fora narrows the field to around half-a-dozen candidates, all of whom are middle-aged or older, and have been involved in aerospace for most if not all of their professional life.

“His” postings? Snort!

Neither the B nor the C could stand the weight and volume of an internal gun. (And yes, the A gun is sort of conformal.) Much of the internal fuel delta between the A and C is accounted for by the gun & feed system.

Thanks A500, useful advice.

So the T-50 is a Flanker derivative with a new fuselage incorporating weapon bays, different inlets, a different front end with chines, entirely different wing planform, and two completely new control effectors?

I think I will stay deluded. It makes more sense.

The problem with the pod is that a 25 mm Gatling = a big ammunition load. Hence its rather rotund proportions.

The pylons are parallel in plan but not in elevation: the incidence of the missile rails is lower than that of the pylons. It’s not very clear why that’s the case.

You are correct. Once you get above around 700 units you don’t end up saving anymore. So yes, an order for 2000 would mean each aircraft costs the same as it would if you had ordered 3000. Anyone trying to tell you otherwise is clueless.

That’s not the case. What actually matters is rate, sustained for long enough that the great majority of units are produced at high rate. The 2443 or whatever for the US forces is, in itself, not very important, because if indeed they are ordered, they will be ordered with the approval of Congresscritters who are in high school today.