It’s the only stealth fall back if the Russians renege on pakfa. And they are using the French partners to leverage this relationship. Typhoon winning the mrca offered no similar leverage. One of LCA’s hangups was trying to span Russian, French, and Israeli weapons compatibility. Not an issue with AMCA. With Rafale production it offers them a chance to inspect SPECTRA. This is a potential avenue to fall back if the indigenous program fails. What advanced AESA radar do they hope to invent out of thin blue air without leveraging French designs? Rafale production also offers insight into manufacturing techniques to eliminate reflective gaps. Rafale also gives them insight into actuators, hydraulics, wheels, etc.

I can find nothing official that MICA EM can be used on the Gripen, just the MICA IR. And technically speaking, since Gripen was compatible with Sky Flash it means it was also compatible with similar missiles like Asphide. It might even be possible that the Japanese AAM-X families are compatible since they use relatively similar compatibility strategies. Python III, Python 4, Python V, ASRAAM, Darter A, Piranha, etc. should also be possible.

Don’t forget they got Sky Sword, too. That’s not a bad thing in the environment they’d be seeing in a hot war event. I don’t understand why people don’t like F-CK-1 when it’s really pretty decent. The US and Canada could probably do most of their air policing with something similar if it had longer legs.

There isn’t. And everything he said is conjecture. I don’t believe it.

We debated the length before. People scoffed when I said 75 feet.

http://forum.keypublishing.co.uk/showthread.php?t=105786

AESA runs extremely efficient and doesn’t consume more power. It’s drawback is that the heat generated is focused and has to be dissipated differently than the previous technologies. The APG-71 was the equivalent to the APG-63. Any work on the -63 could have found its way into the F-14D, only in smaller batches. I cannot imagine the F-14D failing to progress past it’s last real form considering constant improvements to F-15E. This doesn’t mean new builds or drastic changes like removing the swingwings.

A seller of cloth.

I was thinking small goods.

That sure is a nice view of the F-2A. I like the deviations from the F-16.