Mk1 Eyeball test clearly shows that the 800L are installed and the 1200L at on the ground, with the latter representing only a pair is possible to carry. The display placards are clearly in the wrong places.

Actually you paint a wrong picture of what I said, not that its meaningful. The example I put forward was a loose outline. Build up the fact that the enemy has every TopGun fans’ favorite, the F-14. It’s what people are familiar with and you need to create a sense of tension. The scene at the beginning creates the illusion of F/A-18 inferiority, which is important. Your F-35C training mirrors the original training in the movie, only you build tension with the USAF F-22’s plucking them at will to build up to an event where the new hero has an ‘ah ha’ moment. You’re not informing the audience what that realization is until the final battle. Then you throw in the MiG-35OVT squadron, potent because they can outmaneuver the F-35C’s and so the pilots have to learn to stay out of reach. But the Su-35 has far deadlier reach and some kind of missile that can endanger any stealth. Its about building tension. It’s about the drama. It’s about the hero saving the day.

Anything less than involving a stealth fighter ain’t going to cut it these days. It’s either going to be an F-35 vs enemy stealth or an F-18 vs enemy stealth. Having the odds in your protagonist’s favor from the beginning ain’t going to be good storytelling.

In the first movie one F-14 took down a few super MiGs so I’m not sure where you get the idea you have to have equals. My premise is that the F-35C is a super jet if used correctly. The odds are never in one’s favor if the villain has a way to spoof you’re technology underpinnings, which in this case would be the GPS system. Smart weapons are very dependent on the GPS signals save but for the most expensive systems.

Aviation fans will love the nags on the F/A-18, especially since the best quote used against it came from an F-14 pilot. This makes the F-14 look like a uber jet even in this day and age. The villain country would just happen to be using said F-14. That’s a plot you don’t get with North Korea.

If you have a protagonist that can literally shoot down anything thrown at it unless the hero ‘gets it’ and uses his aircraft in such a way that nobody else would then he plays a similar role to Tom Cruise’s character.

You can always find use for more thrust. Less thrust and thrust vectoring is no advantage.

Exactly, like a whole new aircraft and it would presumably lose efficiency with the F414. But you never know, such a hypothetical F-35J version might just spur a domestic F-35D version. I just don’t see it happening. And the F136 just isn’t coming back.

Personally I think they’d be better off going the twin-F414 route if they wanted to somehow change the design before its built.

Scene 1: Errant F/A-18E incident, pilot bails out at low altitude and plane makes soft landing in sandy patch, SAR team gets pilot out, and moments later a second grouping of F/A-18’s appears overhead and using laser guided bombs destroy the largely intact remains of F/A-18E on the ground. Iranians scramble F-14 fighters from base and pursue strike team. Fade out to scene 2.

Scene 2: Fade in to training exercise with an F/A-18E pursuing a Tornado at low altitude over the Atlantic Ocean. Create uncanny relationship so that the Iranian Tomcat fades into the Tornado, with the F/A-18E peeking out from behind it at a distance in pursuit. Introduce main character, the young stud that is a foil of Pete “MAVERICK” Mitchell (Tom Cruise), only twenty-ish years younger. (Note that MAVERICK will not be introduced until later into the story.) We’ll call the new guy “WRANGLER”. The Tornado is pulling away when WRANGLER tells his wingman to catch up with him. His wingman warns him he still hasn’t spotted the second bogey. After failing to engage the Tornado his wingman is tagged from behind by a second Tornado. The wingman sarcastically thanks WRANGLER for getting him shot down. Afterwards the planes land back at NAS Oceana near Virginia Beach, Virginia. Pilots meet in the debriefing room and RAF pilots nag the USN pilots about how that Rhino bird is slow and out running it is a bloody joke because he could have easily just out turned the yanks if he wanted to get dirty. Cue interuption of debriefing with the Lt. Commander dismissing the pilots and offering his thanks to the exchange pilots from RAF Lossiemouth and wishing them safe travels back to Scotland.

Scene 3: Group of pilots sitting at table in [Applebees?] drinking down some cold ones. One of the RAF pilot is describing action over Iraq and how his mates flying in fast and low still took heavy losses to Cold War era weapons. The same pilot goes on to describe his doubt that modern weapons are really any more effective than the Cold War era, and that when it comes to war the same tactics from the days of Sun Tzu still reigns king. Enter WRANGLER. His appearance interupts to conversation. WRANGLER congratulates the RAF pilots for their fine effort all week. The RAF pilot continues his story and more or less dismisses the kind comment. WRANGLER sits down and keeps to himself when he sees CNN out of the corner of his eye. His focus zeroes in on the television where a story is talking about an F/A-18E shot down over Iran. The Iranian spokesman talks about how they drove away the American devils with their superior force. Footage of the destroyed F/A-18E is burning in the background. The Iranian Spokesman then goes on to gloat about how the Americans can not intrude into our sovereign airspace without being destroyed by our superior fighter aircraft and missile defenses. Footage then shows Iranian Tomcats doing a flyby. The RAF pilot holds up his bottle and salutes the fallen pilot, pointing out that if not for all the budget cuts by politicians the Americans would have long ago wiped crazy dictators like the Ayatolah from the face of the earth if they merely breathed wrong. The CNN story pans to an American spokesman that announces how the POTUS apologizes for the mistake and that he deeply regrets the fact that an American warplane was needlessly destroyed over the incident. (Note: Later we will learn the true nature of the errant F/A-18E.)