It’s certifying Meteor loads currently. Are you sure it has fired them?

It’s only a matter of time someone sticks a recoilless hi-vel 40mm or larger cannon in a fighter that shoots smart rounds, be they laser guided or simply fused. The overall cartridge count would drastically drop, but the relative effectiveness would likewise increase. Who needs 4000 rounds per minute when 3-4 smart rounds will do it?

Sprey had no way to anticipate missile technology that could attack from every angle and launch from any position.

The F-14 horizontal stab were experimenting with carbon-carbon laminates in 1968. The F-15 prototypes skipped carbon-carbon honeycombs for an aluminum honeycomb because of oxidation problems and delamination problems. Dassault hardly led the development of these composites…

F-15SE is a bomb truck with ehanced survivability compared to a standard F-15E. The T-50 is an all out brute of a air dominance fighter similar to the raptor.

F-15E is a modernized F-15C (with the backseat of the D) with much better equipment for bomb hauling. The F-15SE is a step back towards its original role as an air superiority role. It just happens to be propsed for the hauling of bombs inside the side-packs. Whatever the customer wants to pay to develop.

Much like the Me-262 being superior in operation and inferior in strategy, the T-50 is a leap in capability that is likely to appear that it stifles Russian aerospace relative to its F-15SE comparison. Fortunately the T-50 is meant for comparability with F-22 instead as F-15SE will never see significant adoption. Russia really has no F-35 comparable program, which is the more important equation.

IMHO the Su-35S is the F-15SE counterpart.

The myth of the overly expensive MiG-31 prevails. Su-27 was not much less expensive, the difference is mainly politics with MiG division not being funded at comparable levels to the Sukhoi division. The MiG-31 is an icon that the Sukhoi people would love to see disappear.

The MiG-29 was a strategic blunder, too heavy for its role within the Soviet economy. For two thirds the weight of the Su-27 it’s generally comparable in maintenance man hours. The lower weight means lower acquisition and running costs, but the lifetime costs due to its complexity were not practical.

Su-24 is roughly comparable to Tornado GR1. It is no F-111.

The RuAF still operates a substantial bomber force, too.