I seem to recall reading somewhere that the Germans were quite taken with the F/A-18 in the early 80s……………anyone else recall anything like that?

No, but i can remember the Marine Nationale salivating over it. 🙂

Who has “appropriate stocks of PGMs” if we are talking about a really major war? And obviously VKS should be prepared for full scale of conflicts. It is better if your aircraft have the option to use all available munitions than be rendered useless when the high-end stocks run dry.

In a “major war” sticking on the exterior of a 5º generation jet an awfull lot of iron bombs its the finest way of getting your most advanced (and expensive) aerial asset getting blown up to pieces. I was astounded to see that particular photo.

Pipe dream

Pretty much, in other words even the Russian MOD says so, at the very best there might be a contract a decade from now, this would throw the ships acceptance to what? 2035?

Russia’s Defense Ministry may sign a contract for the construction of a new aircraft carrier by the end of 2025, Deputy Defense Minister Yuri Borisov said 19 May 2016. “It will most likely happen by the end of 2025. We have three projects that have been proposed by the Krylov [research] center. Overall, they are not bad,” Borisov told reporters at the ongoing HeliRussia-2016 helicopter exhibition in Moscow. The Krylov State Research Centre is a major Russian ship research and design institution focusing on hi-tech products and services for navy and maritime merchant clients.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/23000.htm

Can you quote what you are referring to? I can’t find it on your link (openparliament.ca). Also, this was in 2010. I don’t want to be disrespectful, but at the time Eurofighter speeches were promising a lot for free (remember the CFT nearly ready for production?). Has this been backed since?

Page 09/10 (ops FBW already nailed it), and i´ve seen multiple references by multiple pilots on quite a number of articles suporting that claim.
On the CFT´s, the only reason why they are not flying today is because no one ordered the “things”. Severall of the “promises” of the Eurofighter consortium have been canned by lack of customers (wich is something entirely reasonable, budgets “oblige”), i can think of the 1500L externals, the integration of ALARM, CRV7, BL275 and the original “CASOM” (AKA “Storm Shadow”), all of them on contract, all of them canned by the UK MOD circa 2006, or by lack of interest in the industry proposals (the original AESA offer), TVC, etc.

Cheers

It seems me that after years if not decades of debating about the F-35 there it was not even a slightest agreement about its capabilities and performance: one side consider it an absolute lemon , fruit of bribery and corporate interest , the other one a perfect machine able to fulfill any given role better even than specialized and the result flawless development program with any wrongdoing or cost increase.

Most will probably say that it was a very complex program that turned out an airframe with severall premium capabilities at a high cost while it took/takes its time to mature.
Nothing particulary surprising if we take into account that we are talking about a STVOL, supersonic, stealth strike fighter based on the F-22 Raptor technology and that weights has much has a Tornado.
A great big chunk of the population (albeit not all) around here will probably agree that without “Lusty´s Elevators” (the STVOL requirements) the program would have gone a lot faster with a cheaper end product, offcourse that would leave the UMSC and the RN with some unpalatable decisions, but thats life.

Cheers

Now think even deeper, what aircraft are still capable of maneuver and supersonic speeds with 3 EFT?

The aforementioned typhoon will do it nicely :angel:

Cheers

A “fat fuselage” is required to carry internal stores.

Dont forget “Lusty’s” (AKA HMS Ilustrious) elevators.
While anedoctal, there’s a certain amount of evidence that points that the RN’s and USMC STVOL requirements had a disproportionate influence in the final design of the several JSF contestants, including maximum lenght (namely, the ability to operate in ships designed to acomodate the Harrier). There were some interestings comments made by Tom Burbage on this.

Cheers

I doubt that because Europeans and Russians haven’t managed to build anything like Reaper.

Hmmm?
The chaps at Piagio, the Italian and the UAE Air Forces might disagree.

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