The better aircraft won, period. Nothing politcal to be seen, nor any indacation for other projects.

Just look at the airline industrie, how many do operate IL-76s and how many do fly A330. Tells you something about operating ciosts.

Would still need to be integrated and tested in the full prduction versions and the especially the STOVL. Imho they would only do so if a country with a bigger F-35 order would pay for the integration into the airframe, then they might finish the engine development on their own costs.

So luckily the videos made a point. We are fed marketing bs from all sides.

Here is a nice dramatic Typhoon clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weYvdpY2VbU

But all videos make one common point. The airframe itself matters less and less, the avionics and weapons matter more.

Here you can see how the obsolete Typhoon and the futuristic F-35 will fight Su-35s and who will survive and who will die.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwvnhFgzIKI&feature=player_embedded

They have already proven with their F-16 that they mostly spend their money on second rate aircraft.

Not if you consider the price. EF offers nothing important over the F-16, whike it costs more as F-35.

I think thew Soviet / Russian fourth generation jets have all others beat by a huge margin. Well except for the F-4 and F-106 of the the 3rd generation. But the 3rd generation had also too many ugly ducklings.

When I read such debates I always wonder which Air Force is likely to field an F-35 fleet against an enemy that operates PAK-FA or Eurocanards in real numbers. So how does it matter which aircraft is slighty better in air-to-air combat?

Imho the eurocanards, the F-35, Super Hornet and the F-22 make one very strong combined force structure for multi-national missions.
F-22 does offensive counter-air, F-35 does strike mission, Super Hornet and Eurocanards do regular strike missions with stand-off weapons and CAS. In addition Eurofighter with Meteor will make one hell of a defensive CAP plane, when supported by AWACS.

One could only question which plane suits the needs of one Air Force the most.

Oh, missed that one. My pathetic German humor.

I think the Lightning cannot be considered a viable platform for air defense, pretty much from its IOC to its retirement. Its weapons are not all-weather, it has too limited endurance and no effective on board sensors. Nice performance islands granted. But in its initial job (defending Queen’s islands from Bolshevist bombers) the Phantom outpaced the Lightning with a huge margin.

Especially if you consider that at the time the Russians started fielding SU-24 and TU-22 with stand-off missiles. A Lightning was more or less useless against those. With the RAFG the Lightning still could have had a role as a daylight interceptor, but even there MiG-23 with its radar guided missiles would have made their job demanding.