No, nothing wrong with most Euro programs. The Typhoon, Rafale, Gripen, Eurocopter, Aerospatiale, etc. series are as good as anyone’s.

American systems are as much designed by committee as all else. While it might be German pols battling Fench pols battling Polish pols in Europe….it’s pols from Florida battling pols from Indiana battling pols from Nevada for the U.S.

Airbus has done a supreme job with its multinational structure when compared to Boeing with its which is totally American. The A400M is having its trouble but the C-17 was a “troubled” program in the early 1990s in comparison. The A310 and A330 are winning serious contracts around the world against their 707/767 opponents and with merit.

In the end, little difference….

Ah, the Jag’

What a straigtforward and over-performing airplane if there ever was one of the modern era. I’d never seen that video before, but, watching it bounce and jostly across grass and taxi ways before yanking back was nice.

Not completely up on Brit practice munitions but was the black/white checker pattern on the centreline indicative of a nuclear or conventional weapon?

I suppose the A-10 is rough field capable but I’ve never seen it actually doing so and the C-130 series are good off-pavement performers but completely out of this topic.

So, the F-35, which is based upon the knowledge gained from the F-22 program and is essentially a single-engine Raptor in design, is less stealthy and effective than the F-22?

While the F-22 has been flying in it’s current form for almost 20 years now, 6 year old F-35 now flying with more advanced materials and electronics are less able to deal with real world threats?

I’m a proponent of limited F-22 buys (the 243 number vs. either the 183 or 381) because it is now such an “old” airplane. The F-35 is newer and more advanced in many ways to the point that F-22 blocks are now incorporating F-35 tech into their production rather than vice versa.

The first F-15 prototype flew in 1971…….but the first production examples entered squadron service in 1975. Compare than with YF-22s in 1990 and F/A-22s in 2001. No comparison there.

While, the Super Hornet is a Supreme “Strike Fighter”. Many don’t realize its extremely agile and a very competent dogfighter. That combined with its excellent Radar (APG-79) and Weapons (AIM-9X, AIM-120D) make it a dangerous threat to any would be opponent!

There are a lot of Super Hornet haters out there……..no, it’s not the fastest thing in the sky……..no, it doesn’t have the range you would like…….but, damn, I like that airplane. The airplane is very agile for it’s size and weight but for many it’s just not sexy enough. The U.S. Navy is not one of those people, though.

The video was nice but not the best SH demo show I’ve ever seen……I saw it several years ago but haven’t been able to find it recently. Snap!

Sorry, personally I think the Media along with people like Dr Carlos Kopp have so polluted the Australian Public. That most Australians will believe almost anything Anti F-35. Especially, if sounds like a conspiracy………….and everything sounds like a conspiracy……..:

Kopp is a moron.

As I understand it, what the Aus posters here are trying to say is that the AIR6000 program was the legitimate RAAF-headed program to conduct an overall evaluation or fly-off of the available contenders (all without any Aus government influence or input at all)……perfectly pure with “Advance Australia Fair” playing in the background. That kind of stuff. Then, the Howard government entered into a cabal with the Bush Administration to screw over their own country’s future existence by publicly fronting a desire for the F-22 while all of the time joining the JSF program. Details? Don’t worry about those, just “believe me ’cause I live here.” Then, when the opposing party ran them out of office, they had a huge secret meeting with the incoming Rudd government and water-tortured them into agreeing to continue the obviously flawed plan “or else.” Because, well, that’s how politics works in Australia, you see……the losers get to impose their policies on the winners. And the secret directive that Howard imposed upon the RAAF to keep their traps shut under the threat of politely ignoring them or with public policy statements was also carried over with Rudd. OOOOOOOOHHHHH!!!!!

And even though the F-35 has been utterly humiliated in simulated aerial encounters against the best future potential opponents on a repeated basis, and it’s well known and all over the web, the USAF, USN/USMC, RAF, and half a dozen other nations are still set to order it up by the thousands and spend billions on it to defend their vital national interests for decades to come. It’s all part of the master plan, my friends.

That’s how you guys sound just to let you know.

The F-111 is dead and there is no direct replacement for it. Kind of get over it, okay? The F-35 is itself a dramatic upgrade over what you have now in terms of air defence and intergrated operations that it’s beyond laughing.

The RAAF will be getting the SH and the F-35……….and they’ll be darned glad to have them. Don’t like that? Well, you can go buy all of the 25-years-plus-since-first-flight types like the Typhoon or Rafale. They certainly offer all of the things that the F-35 doesn’t like true stealth (oops), range (not so much), ATA (nope), payload (drat), and support (200 vs. 3000 produced….you do the math.)

plz clarify is it possible it doesn’t carried any missiles?
and the air force it belongs to?
are these retired now?

The Mirage IV did carry the French ASMP in the latter half of its service life. Prior to that it was tasked with lugging AN11/22 free-fall nuclear bombs over the target.

The French were the only country to ever operate the airplane.

Retired now? Very much so.

It’s all right there on the internets:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault_Mirage_IV

Interesting airplane it is……

Brazil FX: Rafale, Gripen, F-18

There is some notion that Brazil may be happy with further Mirage 2000 pick-ups as the AdA replace them for the future even though the FX is back on now.

Like what? Drop bombs? Fire missiles? About the only thing the F-4 had going for it was the larger payload. It was slower, less manueverable, and had less range. If you wanted to drop a butt load of Mk117s while under escort then the F-4 was your man. Other than that though. . .

First, the Super Cru’s basic airframe design was a bit older than the F-4’s….not by much, but older. The two airplanes were designed for very different missions and quidelines within Navy service…….the Crusader was a lighter, cheaper fighter for use from the Navy’s smaller, WW-2 era carriers to replace the likes of the Banshee and the Panther for which it was a tremendous increase in capability. The F-4 was intended as an air-dominance interceptor to operate from the Navy’s newer class of large carriers with all-weather BVR.

Second, the F-8 airframe doesn’t allow much in the way of growth space. It is what it is and it was never intended to be a multi-purpose, all weather combat aircraft. The F-4 was. Need a bigger radar and all the associated equipment? The F-4 had that ability while the F-8’s profile did not allow much in the way of change. One two-seat F-8 was built……..ever…..and it wasn’t something that caught the Navy’s (or anyone else’s eye.)

Third, single-engine reliability. Remember, we are talking 1960s-era engine tech and the Navy was extremely concerned with that at the time. Today, not as much a big deal, but then they weren’t buying anything that wasn’t very cheap that didn’t have twin-engines……F-4…..A-6…..RA-5…..A-3…..etc. They were buying F-8s and A-4s because they were cheap and simple.

Fourth, someone mentioned the Sparrow and single engined fighters. Not many American airplanes were carrying Sparrows with only one crewmen in the 1960s. In the 1970s the Italians were using it with the F-104 and the USAF was beginning to toy with it on the new F-16s. But, since those early Sparrows required continuous radar lock upon the target up to detonation for any degree of success, that didn’t allow the pilot to fly the airplane in an intense combat situation. A fighter on a purely interception mission could do that…….a fighter in a contested sky could not.

Don’t get me wrong, the F-8 is a classic airplane that earned it’s place it history. But, the -3 was not contender for the F-4 and the history since then only reinforces that.