What evidence have you for such a bold statement? The SHARS were frequently operating at that distance from their own carriers. And a series of air-cover missions were flown by Grupo 8 Mirages.

The Harriers operated 100 to 200nm from their carriers. That distance was deemed the compromise between safety for the carriers (which the SHARs were obviously unable to protect in the waters around the Falklands) and operational capability of the Harriers (the Invincible still was attacked by SuE and closely escaped, for the disadvantage of the Atlantic Conveyor).
The Argis had 800km one way trip without any noticeable surveillance assets giving them direction, so they basically flew in and relied on luck and basic logic (landing ships are at landing sites when landing is conducted).

Take this excerpt as example:

While the Skyhawks and the Argentine navy’s four Super Etendards were capable of air refueling, the Daggers and the Mirages were not. Even using two 550-gallon drop tanks to carry extra fuel, the Daggers and Mirages were flying at the absolute limit of their range to reach the British fleet. The fighters sent to engage the Harrier CAP and cover the strike force would have no more than five minutes over the target area. The Harriers, on the other hand, could loiter for up to an hour and quickly refuel on the nearby carriers. The distance the Argentinians had to fly to engage the British was increased further by the Royal Navy’s tactic of positioning its fleet 70–100 NM east or northeast of the Falkland Islands—that added another 150–200 NM to the distance and created additional fuel requirements for the Argentine missions. Moreover, the Argentine Mirages and Daggers, escort fighters capable of Mach 2, could not use their afterburners to employ their enormous speed advantage against the subsonic British Harriers because of the extra fuel it would consume. If the Argentine fighters were forced to use their afterburners during the course of their missions, they would consume the very fuel they would need to return to base.

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj02/fal02/corum.html

I don’t fully understand what you mean. Its performance in the Falklands, and subsequently, demonstrated extreme versatility, robustness, serviceability, and an ability to out-fight nominally superior aircraft when flown well. What more do you want?
Gute Nacht!

It had a very limited effect on ground warfare, it was unable to protect the fleet against a limited air force (let’s forget the Exocet for a second, most British ships were sunk or damaged by conventional bombs), it didn’t outperform the other aircraft but simply did turkey shot them when it was positioned right. When it wasn’t, it had no ability to hunt or catch them as it had basically no speed advantage. Not that the Harrier performed below its abilities, it just performed as good as it could.

Just to give an example, a single US Navy carrier could have prevented the Argis from reaching the Falklands at all with air assets. A French carrier could at least have fielded more capable fighter aircraft (both F-8 and SuE).

Unless your heavyweight fighter (Su-35) is doing the job of 2 mediumweights (Typhoon). I’ll leave the operating costs to you, but from where I’m standing- no calculus required.

As for finest, I guess Irkut’s Su-30 order book is just one giant fabrication, and the respective evaluation teams are imbeciles.

1+1 does not always equal two, at least when we consider the tactical options the double number of fighters have. Normally a double CAP patrol with 4 missiles each would be far more effective than one aircraft carrying 8 missiles.

It is rather unlikely that a fighter could bring more than 4 BVR missiles onto a target, except targets are very plentiful and are somehow cooperative. When someone switches on his radar, the opponent will flee as soon he sees himself in disadvantage. First priority is normally to save the limited air assets instead of winning air engagements on any costs. A modern air war would see in majority a number of disengagements. No book tells how often fighter pilots did challenge empty airspace but rather focus on the few occasions where they found enemies and engaged them with success.

By the way: how often do you think you can take all the shiny missiles for a walk before they need some maintenance?

Hmmm…disadvantages(?) like range/time-on-station, superior radar, supercruise, weapons load etc.etc. besides I wasn’t aware that “excessive weight and size” were pre-requisites for the finest 4th generation fighter design- acknowledged by all university engineering depts. worth their salt.

You rarely carry more than 8 missiles. Actually more is waste, especially for a nation like Brazil not awaiting the apocalyptic storm of hundreds of enemy jets. On a normal CAP you would rather see aircraft take off with 6 missiles. That suffices for two BVR runs with 2 missiles expended each. Afterwards the flight heads home, kill or not.

A Suchoi cannot generate any advantage, as with 6 or 8 missiles it will have no range or endurance advantage versus an Eurofighter or an Rafale with external tanks (which are dropped in case the thing gets hot, which does not happen at 98% of all CAP missions).

So, the Eurofighter has same mission performance at 30-40% less OEW.
Supercruise is included, and I guess we refrain making claims on complicated things like radar performance versus hostile fighter size targets with electronic counter measures. Just that much: it is no linear function of the dish diameter.

By the way, what is the finest 4th generation fighter? :confused:
Those I know all come out at considerably less than 15t OEW.

3D TVC for an aircraft like the su-35/27 should give it a special advantage on the heigh/speed arena compared with europlanes, which is related on BVR, TVCs are not fitted for low speed performance mainly (althought it helps)

It would be interesting how it looks when an aircraft uses its super-advanced TVC and stuff to make funny maneuvers, while its adversary just fires two missiles each, makes a turn and gets the hell out of there. I think even the unconceivable Russian Plasma-TVC will not outperform an AMRAAM deeply within its engagement envelope, and definitely not two of them.

Rule of thumb.
“The biggest target in the sky, is always the first to die.”

Then Typhoon and Rafale have some margin left.

I feel that the Su-35BM can be a more useful jet than the F-35 for a variety of reasons – mostly due to size.

Strange, in University they told us weight and size is bad, if the aircraft can perform the same mission (payload/range). Now, considering a normal air dominance mission with 4 MR-AAM and 4 SR-AAM, how does the size of the Suchoi 35 have any advantage? The Typhoon can do this mission with 30% less OEW.

I always liked the Super Etendard’s legendary status after the Falklands/Maldivas War. More legend than reality. The A-4 Skyhawks of the time period were probably superior machines in many ways, they just did not get the press. The exocet and its accompanying radar set were the only real pluses for the SuE at the time. Otherwise they were just filling a niche role.

I actually doubt that the A-4 would have performed much better.
The really superior aircraft was the A-7D or E due to its engine and higher weights.

The F-15 and the Su-27 have always been rivals in my mind. It would truly be a pity if the F-15 fell so far behind. 😮

With the slight difference that the F-15 was nearly 10 years earlier. I think these are still more F-15 in service than Su-27 derivatives, and will be for the future.
The F-15E derivatives are powerful strikes with a respectable air2air component. They lack features like reduced signature, supercruise or “super agility”. All these features can be questioned in their necessity, while other often more important features features (like ECM, radar performance, weapons) are not linked to the airframe itself.

Fast the point is arriving, where for financial reasons the U.S. will have to concentrate on a single manned tactical fighter/fighterbomber platform. And it will have to be a carrier-capable one. The Super Hornet for now, and the F-35 for the next two decades (at least). Even updates are questionable, since UAVs are taking over in the a/g role, and in the a/a business the Air Force will do nothing to endanger the F-22. Alaska’s updated handful of F-15 will remain an anomaly. The F-15 and F-16 will just peter out, except in case when e.g. India buys the line. Like the old Chrysler Sebring line having been bought by GAZ Volga.

Errh, could you please name a few UAV that gonna take over a/g role in the near future? Last time I’ve seen the Flight International’s special on UAVs, they all had props and people were happy they could engage a non-defended known target in simple terrain.

Why? It’s got a lot more thrust dry than an F-14A does in full afterburner. Also, the top speed on that graph is incorrect if Paul Metz is to be believed. Should go up to at least Mach 2.4

The transonic drag peak would require thrust far beyond than double the dry reference thrust when trying to jump over it at sea level. Look at Sens’ graph and see how a turbojet generates more thrust with speed and eventually arrives at 200% of its M=0 value. Still, aircraft travelling supersonic speeds at sea level are a rarity (not by specifications but by mission).

The Mach2 limit has to do with aerodynamics and heat. Besides, some other issues arise there (engine EGT, how to open the weapons door?, stability, control laws).

Back to the issue about the F-22’s envelope.
This graph is from the Stevenson’s brief (which was surprisingly accurate on empty weight and fuel fraction).

[ATTACH]163562[/ATTACH]
I even doubt this graph is that precise, I have serious doubts on the ability of an F-22 to break the sound barrier on dry thrust at low altitude. The F-15’s envelope is clean.

The graph from Kopp doesn’t make sense in many respects: First of all, the supercuise corner should be high ab, between 20k and 35k ft. Second, the transonic drag peak always becomes apparent in such graph (with a drop in 1g flight envelope around Mach 1). In Kopp’s graph it doesn’t, either it is intended to show something else, or it is complete rubbish. EDIT: I just looked at the Carlo Kopp website, I am now convinced it is rubbish!