Simple choice be the dog of the Americans or the partner of the French.

In case some missed the info:

THE COLD WAR IS OVER

And Russia is a decade away from fielding a regiment of those SU-50s.

i do think that this will continue to sort which countries place importance on staying capable of airframe production and which ones decide to make do with the F35 and 4th generation systems.

Some countries do not have the will to continue to fund defence and its a question of whether EADS, BAE and Dassault have the ability to keep up.

There was another thread about a 5th Generation SAAB fighter, which I didn’t really buy.

I do think for these companies that its more a case of either playing catch up with Stealth manned fighters or taking the “next step” whatever that may be.

MBB (now EADS) had a Stealth fighter similar to the F-117 Lampyriade in an advanced stage of development in the 80ies. It was dropped because the cold war ended and the moeny for fielding it was not given.

If you look at the UAVs currently undergoing tests, they also show that the know-how is there. Luckiyl the politcal will is not there. So no money is wasted on pointless arms developments.

@ swerve

I am happy that the will is not there. If Europe would get out of the American wars, we could slash our armed forces by 50% and still be safe. Austria does it quite well imho. Nobody invaded them.

Does the PAK-FA justify a 5th gen European program? I say, yes, at some level. PAK-FA does not represent an immediate military threat, but it represents proliferation of 5th generation aircraft. This is a threat to the European aerospace industry. If you are unable to sell your aircraft, you are unable to survive as a company, and this could cause the loss of european expertise and jobs in the aerospace defense sector, as well as loss of European technological supremacy over China, Russia, and others.

Europe does not even sell the less advanced (and cheaper to built) 4th generation aircraft. People are already saying F-35 is too expensive, a european solution would be even more expensive. Now considering that Europe has no such think like FMS, who would buy that aircraft, when the US and the Russian (later the Chinese) also offer their solutions.

The technology is not the problem. Money is the problem. Why waste billions on a plane that is not needed. Europe should reduce its armed forces to have more money for the social welfare systems and not buy a 5th generation plane it will never need.

And is some countries feel the need to be able to join the US in their proxy wars, then F-35 is available.

how much saw toothed edges reducing RCS ?
considering how different T-10 to operational flanker, the operational PAK-FA will looks different n improved much too CMIIW….

You really can´t tell. One misaligned panel can destroy your whole RCS reduction, while the sawtooth shaped panels should avoid that radar waves are reflected by the outlines of a panel. But then some companies claim that using RAM coating on those parts works equally well.

Looking closer at the plane, I would say most of the RCS reduction went into the frontal section. The still rounded engine nacelles look like a quite good reflector and the rear end very much looks like a SU-27/35. With lots of Gaps and 90° angles.

But I am sure the plane will develop until the series production starts.

No, because Russia is no enemy to the Western Europe. And honestly the Europeans could not afford a real 5th generation fighter either.

Plenty of people here and on other online forums seem to have no problem swallowing the idea that the Rafale can trounce the Typhoon 7:1 despite being artificially limited, yet the Typhoon beating the 30 year old F-15 by 8:1 in a fair fight seems to be harder to stomach for some reason ? :rolleyes:

If we assume that the Typhoon’s dominance over legacy aircraft in DACT exercises can all just be chalked up to the opposing aircraft being unfairly disadvantaged as some people suggest, then surely it’s only fair that we apply the same scepticism to the well publicised victories of other aircraft.

When the F-22 beats scores of F-15 and F-16 in exercises is that also just PR talk ? …

Well, think about it. Tiffies and Eagly uses the same BVR missile. Neither is so stealthy that it could avoid detection by the other before entering shooting range.

So even if I give the Tiffy a little advantge due to entering the fight at higher speeds, it is unlikely that they would be able to shoot all 8 F-15s.

Only scenario would be a scenario in which they launched the AMRAAM from maximum range and turned away. But then the AMRAAM would be lacking energy in the final phase and lack mid-course up-dates meaning that 100% hit percentages are unlikely at best.

Rafale on the other hand uses different missiles than Tiffy.