That’s funny, there wasn’t a shortage of Starfighters late in ’86 and the beginning of ’87. I bet if you looked around a little bit you could have found a handful of two-seaters around right before they brought the wall down.

From what I understand the F-15 pilots were pretty surefooted by the late 80’s. Three F-15 pilots got their wing commander in trouble for dominating the German Luftwaffe’s F-104 fleet. It sounds like they were able to engage the Germans at will and avoid any potential counter manuevers in the process. The Germans didn’t take to kindly to playing the fish in the barrel.

With the run closing on F-22 it begs the question, “What would it cost to centralize production of an F-22NG built off lessons from the F-35 program?”

ST-21,
The AIM-9B produced in Germany was cooled by carbon dioxide first. No ESP necessary.

The AIM-9D used liquid Nitrogen like the Falcons. Expensive way to do it. But this is also why the F-4D supported Falcon on the internal mounts.

If they wanted the blended winglets then maybe they should buy out defunct U.S. airlines using 767’s already. They would save a bundle converting the 767’s already flying into tankers using non-Boeing involved contractors. I’m sure Boeing would pull a coup de grace on this strategy, but it sure would save taxpayers a fortune to buy lightly used airframes like that.

The F-8 did have the best win/loss ratio of the War. However it was not because it had guns or was the best “dogfighter” (BTW, the classic “dogfight” is pretty much the least effective tactic for getting kills, but that’s another topic). It was because, except for very limited instances, air-to-air was all they did and all they trained for.

My point about what if the US had had Crusader IIIs instead of the F-4 was that you’d end up with a probably superior air superiority aircraft, but incapable of doing those other things the F-4 did would have been done.

Which are two very good points. If the F-8s were in the hands of naval pilots it probably performs because of their approach at that time to air superiority training. When the F-15 first was in service they trained with USN F-4’s in DACT and got their heads handed to them. It took the USAF pilot training school to change a lot of their approach to air warfare – not just air superiority – to make the F-15 actually worthwhile. Superior machine in the hands of inferior pilots.

actually Rafales did arrive in India for flight testing and there were even some pics that some guy took of Rafales flying over Bangalore. The talk about 2 candidates performing below par most likely indicates the Super Hornet and the MiG-35 or the F-16 Block 60..although we do know that the UAE also asked for more powerful engines for the Rafale, and if that is true, it may have not performed so well in the Leh high altitude trials and Jaisalmer’s heat.

I think you nailed the issue with Rafale in India. They would want more powerful engines, which just isn’t really an option. The french chose the less powerful engines for a good reason, cost over the life of the program. India isn’t so concerned with the cost over the lifespan, they want technology. Its not like they are going to be given details on how SPECTRA works if they go Rafale. And the engines get them nowhere with Tejas. I could see them opting for the Eurofighter offer simply because it outclasses the MiG-35 quite a bit and the technology immediately to gain gets them closer to a Tejas Mk.2 candidate.

Not allowing standard NATO weaponry on the Rafale does seem like cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face. If there had been a heating up of the Cold War it makes you wonder what kind of issues with NATO cooperation would have cropped up with the French forces.