300km is an obviously falsehood. It took four F-14D’s chained together to get performance like that. No single fighter could hope to get anywhere near that.

What options on the table are even outright viable against the probably F-16 Blk 50 threat? Remember an attrition rate for a fighter-bomber above even 2% is unacceptable if its not a homegrown design. The Iranians and Iraqis are familiar with unacceptably high attrition rates of their imported warplanes. I’m sure the IAF is well aware of the history lesson.

Drone’s links show how Mirages used brute power to overcome their agility. Its a good lesson in tactical progression.

Exactly! They shouldn’t have bothered with the Apache when they could have just made the AH-1Z all along …

You aren’t seeing the big picture. First of all we don’t supply the later two helicopters to all of our foreign customers. And some of these foreign customers already have established parts chains for these platforms. So Apache and Blackhawk make no sense in those cases.

Wouldn’t it make more sense for India to go J-10?

Wouldn’t it make more sense for India to go J-10? Considering India already operates the Su-27/30, it would make sense they use a single-engine fighter with the same engine. And since the order would be in a significant higher quantity than Pakistan could afford, they could sign terms forbidding China to sell the same aircraft to Pakistan. I’d think it to be a good strategic move for India.

Why do I get the express feeling that Korea still hates Japan even into this new century?

Not really that much more (43,000 vs up to 39,000 for the F119 so I hear) but more importantly they’re designed for different envelopes. Think of the F135 as a bigger F110. Bypass ratios of the two are very different as would be their supersonic performance.

I figured it would neuter the F-22 as far as supercruise performance above 36000 feet goes.