Sorry, but back then was in my teens and I lived next to a SAC base with an annual airshow that brought in a lot of personnel from all over the country. I didn’t even know what an F-20A was at the time, but the talk really sparked my interest. Before BRAQ we had two different ANG bases within an hour from us, and we literally had regular overflights by every fighter in the various services, as one of the wings did tanking. Unlike other planes, F-20A wasn’t an Air Force design so they talked about it. I remember another selling point the guys told me was that they carried Sparrow and the F-16 did not. I remember one guy bagging on General Dynamics in general, saying they shouldn’t buy anything remotely involved with them. He wouldn’t explain that. The same guy wasn’t a fan of Boeing either. Apparently people in the Air Force didn’t care for either company.

What “Stealth technology” did the F-20A have?

None intentional. But it was small and had extensive use of carbon fiber in its day, making it remarkably smaller in RCS than the F-5E it was to replace.

I’m not sure who broke the quote system, but it’s a shame. Manually inserting quotes is a PITA.

That still leaves the cost issue. With FMS cleared, this hybrid is basically an F-22C (unless you go with deeper bays), so why not just co-fund the line restart and F-35 electronics & coating upgrade? More planes for U.S., and a much improved cost & timeline for delivery than a cleansheet (which a physical hybrid would actually be).

Which is why a conversion of F-35A or F-35C makes far more sense. I’d think an F-35C, being the bigger wing would certainly help add substantial lift for high altitude performance. Sure, it also has more drag in the lower altitudes. But the lift generated makes the angle of attack and deflection angle of the control surfaces work less hard therefore improving drag at high altitude. Add in ADVENT technologies to give it the thrust up there and you have a win-win situation.

Tomahawks wouldn’t remain intact even if they lost power and fell to earth by themselves. They disintegrate mostly on impact.

The Japanese were wise to go F-15J followed by additional development. I wouldn’t doubt that their stealth is a development of F-15 going on the basic layout of their demonstrator.

I’m wondering if there would be an impetus to draw down Tu-22M3 out from it’s anti-shipping role in some cases now that such a long range platform with substantially less cost has role overlap. The question would then be, re-purpose the Tu-22M3 or retire it.

The Chinese have demonstrated finesse with program details that exceed anything from the Su-57 program thus far. They already widely deploy Al-31F equivalent engines. They also have access to Russia’s premier program, the Su-35S. And people want to pretend MKI is even on par with J-20? Pure Darwin.

J-20 is a paradigm shift in technology. Fighting J-20 with MKI would be suicidal. Pretending it will be the same old status quo just proves Darwin’s Theory is alive and well in 2018.

Marine life will enjoy the quieter design base.