Ooshiny – try not to be an idiot. The Mirage 2000 requirements were barely written in 1975. That was the year ACF was cancelled.

Sensible comparison of timescales is hard enough without such obvious attempts to rewrite history.

The Rafale case is difficult, too, because the FAF contracted post-cold-war. Older aircraft were retired and M2000s were upgraded. The FN Crusaders were stretched as far as possible, the SEM was brought on board and the Rafale sked was changed as a matter of policy. JSF SDD has never been slowed because of funding, although production orders have been delayed in response to SDD delays and production slippage.

France joined the ECF program in 1979 (laying the roots of the Rafale), which is roughly analogous to the CALF.

Post Cold War the AdlA participated in multiple conflicts (Gulf War, Balkans). Given that experience, there’s no operational reason why the Rafale shouldn’t have been self designating ground targets until 2010. It certainly lends perspective to the F-35’s ‘limited’ capabilities for the brief period spent in the Block 2B/3I configuration.

The French and the Sweedes were not satisfied with the EF-2000 specs. France has a manufacturing base that can build an entire fighter, unlike other european countries except the UK, so it was considered a strategic decision to maintain it. The Sweedes wanted a much lighter plane than the EF.

Well they’re fortunate that Egyptian military junta decided to splurge on arms during an economic crunch, else that ‘strategic decision’ might have landed Dassault Aviation with the first clean-sheet design to fail to get a single export order. As it is, production has been squeezed down to a trickle to make the annual intake affordable to the French state. With the basic French fighter industry wrapping up by 2020 or so (though allied segments will persevere, similar to Israel), closely followed by the remainder of the European industry by 2023 (when the Gripen E transits out of production), the question of how justified that decision to preserve ‘national capabilities’ was, may have a disheartening answer.

The F-35 is too slow to intercept fast supercruising fighters. The standard in terms of speed will be much higher in the next 10 years. Even a adaptive engine will not be enough for the high drag F-35. A fighter needs enough speed to catch up with his opponent or escape.

The F-16 was still quite a fine plane in 2001 when the last were build for the USAF, it was not a turkey with like 30% less effective speed than its opponents.

That’s just silly. The F-35 does Mach 1.6 and thanks to huge internal fuel load, it can afford to fly clean. Unless its involved in a tail-chase with a PAK FA, speed is hardly an issue.

The exact oposite…
The major upgrades on the Tornado fmk3 we’re made in its last decade of life, and they were quite massive;

What major upgrades were made to the aircraft in the last decade (aside from new weaponry)?

by comparison with it’s 1986 deployement plan the mk3 was retired a full decade before it was suposed to, on the other hand the Jag’s, harriers, sea harriers (and Bucaners) all outlived their original planned retirement by a very handsome margin.
The RAF has a past record of upgrading the platforms that it uses right to their retirement, it’s entirely conceivable that the Phoon will get this same treatment.

The Sea Harriers and Harrier IIs were axed with plenty of life left in the airframe and resulted in significant value simply being written-off by the MoD (applies to the Jaguar too, albeit a little less so). To assert that the EF would receive a huge new MLU post 2040, requires faith in the continuation of the tradition of mismanagement that produced the Nimrod MRA4. Alternatively, if we take the EF T1s as an example of things to come, the RAF’s EF fleet may well have been retired by 2040.

The RAF has been reduced much more than the ArlA. The AdlA has much more than 180 planes.

The 2013 White Paper directs the combat fleet to be reduced to 225 aircraft. With 45 of those operated by the MN, that leaves only 180 for the AdlA. The RAF’s plans currently project 105 EFs and 70 F-35Bs (with another 70 odd F-35Bs for the RN), though over the short term they may be able to afford only half or so of the latter type.

The USAF has the advantage of a very large budget, they can build pretty much anything they want in large numbers if they don’t really get overboard with their planes.

No they can’t. The aircraft needs to be relatively affordable as well. Case in point: F-22.

That is a huge advantage compared to the Europeans who try to do the best they can with what they have.

When you choose to run three parallel programs instead of compromising on specifications & work-shares, it doesn’t come as a surprise that the end product isn’t cost effective. The US could have developed two or three separate types for each of its services, but it would never have achieved the economies of scale necessary to squeeze the unit costs down to 4th gen levels.

I also am thinking that stealth as we know it might seize to exist as a dependable protection for an aircraft in the next 10 years, 15 TOPS! What happens then?

The definitive variants of the PAK FA, J-20 & J-31 will be FOCing in about 10 years time. And in 15 years, they’ll be new arrivals coming in from Japan followed by Korea, India and Turkey. Expecting stealth to be obsolete may end up being a lot similar to arguing that a gun was obsolete back in the 60s.

It’s a Drone, not a remote control plane. You can program them with emergency procedures if contact is broken, rendez vous at some point or whatever + you can switch to satcom if LOS is broken.

Except that what I’m describing isn’t an emergency, its something you can expect to happen on a very regular basis unless we’re talking about a low threat conflict. Control oversight by the fighter WSO should not be taken for granted in any typical mission.

Deep penetration strikes will be made with preplanned actions. No need for constant LOS with a supporting fighter then. Besides, what do you think SATCOM is for? Liason would be more useful in seek & destroy type scenario, like SCUD search in GWI or looking for mobile ADS.

Well clearly we’re discussing different things. You’re looking at a newer Iraq or Libya type intervention while I’m thinking more on the lines of Russia or China. Meaning I expect plentiful long range radars (and SAMs) on ground, plentiful interceptors in the air (backed by AWACS and including LO fighters), unreliable SATCOM with satellite subject to jamming (if not outright shootdowns) and limited time and intelligence for pre-planning missions. Some of that would you’d face even against a mid-tier threat like an Iran rearmed with Russian equipment. Or to pick a better trained (albeit more unlikely) foe, a Pakistan with the latest generation of Chinese weaponry.

You only need your drone to be stealth & subsonic, and have good onboard sensors & datalink to transmit data to accompanying fighters (any two seater will do). Direct LOS AESA datalink will enable a stealth drone & fighter to work in tandem, with the drone going anywhere the fighter can’t in hairy scenarios and expanding weapons or sending firing coordinates to other assets.

Nic

1. If the fighter and drone operate in tandem, than the fighter also gets limited to subsonic speeds. What if the formation gets intercepted by enemy aircraft? The fighters will be able to scatter, withdraw or engage. The drones will be hobbled with by their limited speed and agility. Especially considering that the drone will be at a certain orientation to the fighter while the enemy attacks can come from any aspect.

2. The need to maintain line-of-sight limits the pair’s capability. The drone will always be ‘leashed’ to the fighter, making penetrative strikes and long range attack difficult to pull off given that the Rafale will still be detectable and the LOS has limited range and the fighter will need to remain on station throughout.

Point is, the arrangement will rob the fighter pilot of the flexibility necessary for his job.

replace maybe no, but work with, quite possibly. A flight of a manned fighter with a few autonous drones which would follow and fight designated targets could very well be done, including in air to air. While they wouldn’t have the capability to analyze the situation like a human could, once the target is designated, you could order them to destroy it and even order a particular tactic. If, today, the video games industry can program the A.I. to “fly” this or that way, chances are that, with the budgets allowed, with hardware available, defence developers will be able to program the A.I. of the drones to do the same.

That’s bit of a stretch frankly. If you want a drone with the speed, agility and flexibility of a fighter aircraft… well, odds are it’ll cost far more to develop than a conventional fighter aircraft. The UK and France (and the US for that matter) don’t seem to aiming for something that ambitious with the FCAS. Alternately, you could use the UCAV purely as a weapons platform in air combat but that’s feasible only if we’re willing to treat it as a (somewhat) expendable asset, but given the likely unit cost of the aircraft (not much cheaper than a fighter) that’s not going to be possible.