Well, that is exactly what the F-22s seemed to be doing, according to the story.. No wonder they have prevailed.. The question stands why would Rafales want to use their radars? That is pretty much the last thing one would do when facing a stealthy fighter equipped with AN/ALR-94, unless the ROE dictate it…

If the Rafale employs its radar, that silent F-22 stills creeps into missile range undetected. If the Rafale doesn’t employ its radar and (theoretically) detects and gets a bearing on the APG-77 emissions, it still can’t do anything about it, since it’ll get ‘painted’ before it can reach missile range.

Cdr. Jones was actually an F-14 driver and won the Top Gun trophy before he transitioned to the Hornet. He is my father in law.

I’m pretty sure the ‘Top Gun trophy’ was fictional.

Its a testament to how far video games have come that they can be considered a possible source of a fake aviation video. 😀

To be honest, I would assume anything it would encounter would also have a HMCS* of sorts and IRST* and would probably be able to add more energy to its missile launch.

For IR based missile combat, I wouldn’t be expecting the F-35 to have any advantage in launch due to EODAS and HMDS.

In a 4.5 gen aircraft, the pilot would be equipped with an HMCS but still limited to what he can see from his cockpit. Also, when he focuses on any particular thing he loses the ability to continually scan the surroundings (thus fighters typically fly in pairs). Same for the IRST (limited FoV).

Also, high launch speed is certainly a big advantage when the target is in front of the aircraft. If not, it can be a downside forcing the missile to trace a larger turning radius. Which is primarily why WVRAAMs (Mach 2.5-3) have lower peak velocities than BVRAAMs (Mach 4+).

In my opinion, given the reference he made to the Bison, he his referring to the “jumping nosewheel” concept where the leg is extended once a certain level of speed is reached to liftoff the plane using the extra lift provided by the wing incidences without having to cope with the extra drag of a nose-up attitude during initial acceleration (thing at the 50’s naval fighter).

That would make sense. Except that both the Vladimir Kondaurov’s book as well as the video you’ve posted say that the landing gear is extended before the aircraft starts is take-off run.

Perhaps this type of landing gear takes up less volume inside the fuselage than than putting longer ‘fixed’ suspension.

if burn efficiency is similar, then the heat source is proportional to fuel burn

Say what?

How so? It’s true that the F135 has some of the highest turbine inlet temperatures, but that single engine is also generating much more electrical power compared to predecessors, so actual exhaust temperatures isn’t known. I don’t see how it’s somehow worse than other aircraft, especially when their nozzles are much more exposed than the F-35’s in comparison.

In normal military thrust, the F135 will have a lower IR signature than any other similar engine in the world, as a result of its unusually high bypass ratio. The turbine will thus extract more ‘work’ from the cycle and a far higher proportion of the exhaust gas will consist of (cold) bypass air.

Thats exactly why it will make for interesting reading. If it ends up they never lost an F-35, which given the careful wording is almost certainly not true, then those percentages start looking good all of a sudden….who was flying the F-35s, what type of configurations etc. Even looking at the start of the F-16s career the test pilots were given a few lessons when they visited operational squadrons and setup for an engagement.

If we go by the wording, the F-35s won all 4v4s against the F-16. But the fact that they specified the type of engagement suggests that 1v1s & 2v2s weren’t quite as successful. Which is to be expected really. Its nobody’s case that the F-35 is the next great dog-fighter but the fact still remains that the F-35 pilot will have superlative situational awareness. Which is a factor that increases in importance as the number of participants in a WVR setup rises.