Yeah I agree that weapons integration is an issue when it comes to the Rafale. How much of an issue I don’t know. You would have to know what the Rafale team proposes in terms of deadline and cost to integrate other weapons to the Rafale. Surely if a customer requires a weapon, integration has plenty of time to be carried out before delivery of the first Rafale to the customer, but then how much would it cost?

Luckily there are a few deals open where it might be no problem like Brazil or Lybia.

India might work as well, although I think that they have integrated many parts of Israeli origin into their current inventory, which might be a problem for Rafale.

The problem just isthat the average Frenchman refuses to speak english to the average German. I experienced this more then once during airshows in France. I had to make do with my very limited knowledge of French and as a guy from the UK showed up the Frenchmen suddenly was fluent in english.

Yes, it will be interesting to see how the Swiss competition plays out from that point of view. Switzerland has already chosen both a high off-boresight SRAAM (AIM-9X) and an active-radar MRAAM (AIM-120C) and Rafale is not integrated with either at the moment. Needless to say, it seems unlikely that such a small airforce would acquire a second stockpile of missiles for the same role.

Then again, the SRAAM question at least applies to the other competitors as well, I don’t believe AIM-9X is available for either the Gripen or the Typhoon.

I thin integrating AIM-9X into Typhoon should be no problem. It uses the legacy AIM-9 hardware which Typhoon has. Only integrating it into the helmet mounted display might need some work.

Which focis mode C or S? Which tracking mode? lens correctly set? Which 70-300?

Who can be surprised? J-10 came decades after F-16 and MiG-29 and they had some outside help. Engines and avionics and most likely in the desing of the plane itself, which reminds a little of a certain failed fighter project in the middle east.

What a pointless discussion.

Nobody should be surprised that the SU can beat the F-15 in a slow spped WVR dogfight. Even an A-4 could do this and I have a nice collection of F-15 in the gunsights of F-4Fs. An F-15 always had to keep speed and energy up to dominate the enemy.

Secondly the mechanical scanned radars in the F-15C have not seen much up-grades in the last decade, as AESA was ready just not funded for a fleet wide upgrade.

So how can it be a surprise that SU-30MKI is a match to it. Those F-15 were nearly 20 years old when the SU-30MKI entered operational service. Just the man to machine interface alone is more then one generation ahead.

BUT all this mostly matters in exercises only. In a real conflict F-15 have the whole combined might of the american armed forces behind them. From SIGNIT to AWACS. Today all integrated with datalinks. That is (and has always been) the deciding factor for their strong dominating status in air combat.

I would say that a stealthy SI-35 should be superior to F-22. Pak-FA will be even more advanced.

It is pointless comparing airplanes, you have to compare the whole system behind them. JSF in the UK service is surely superior in attacking highly defended targets with bombs, comapred to Rafale or Super Bug. However how many nations are fielding such modern systems in the future. A few – I would say. But more interestingly how many nations will be fielding such systems, while it would still be able for a RN task force centred around 1 carrier to patrol the coastline of this country. Would such a country not be fielding an AWACS systems, radar systems for naval surveillance, 4th generation fighters with modern ASMs, anti radiation missiles and a navy with modern ships and more anti-ship systems in addition to a few submarines.

For me it is obvious that a RN taskforce with JSF won´t be able to attack countries other then the same taskforce with F-35 as it would lack in support.