No prob’s, he can download & play Ferrari Virtual Race Video in between !

Don’t give Hollande any ideas! Imagine how much cheaper a bunch of computers with joysticks would be than turboprops.

Hard days for the French Air Force. Their government and population will continue to expect them to answer the call when needed.

Mercier said a key requirement is the procurement of a new trainer, in part to allow second-tier pilots the ability to train on a cheaper aircraft than a Rafale or Mirage 2000D. The concept is for a second-tier pilot to spend 40 hours a year in the Rafale and 140 hours on a new trainer.

Mercier said he wants to start replacing many of the aging Alpha Jet trainers currently in service with a new aircraft that has embedded simulation to allow it to replicate some of the characteristics of France’s front-line fighters.

“We don’t have that capability yet. … We need to upgrade our systems and replace the Alpha Jet. Without a new aircraft like the PC-21 and Hawk T2, which have embedded simulation, it would be difficult to train the pilots to this new concept,” he said.

The Air Force preference is for a turboprop like the PC-21 for cost reasons.

Some Alpha Jets will remain in service for basic fast-jet training duties but many of the fleet will start to be pensioned off as the new trainers are delivered.

Turboprops? Ouch… I initially assumed that they would at a minimum purchase a fairly advanced jet trainer, perhaps a T-50 or a Gripen trainer, etc.

How do they expect to maintain capabilities with only 40 hours a year in a fast jet and another 140 in a turboprop?

Of course performance gains are possible beyond with proper investment, however the folks that decide these types of things are investing in the meteor, T3 NGM etc…Furthermore the ABC and HELLADS are properly funded so instead of seeking faster missiles, you can invest in lasers that travel at the speed of light.

Well Meteor is the current state of the art. I wouldn’t expect to see another tier of performance for some years, but I do expect to see it.

HELLADS doesn’t really figure into this discussion. It is an exciting capability, but won’t be a competitor for medium or long range AAMs anytime in the foreseeable future. (Though it could be a countermeasure to them.)

What is interesting in that paper is this paragraph

“Lambeth recalls flying out of Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. F-15s armed with the AIM-120 Advanced Medium Range AAM (AMRAAM) took on four F-15s simulating MiG-29s armed with R-27 Alamo MRAAMs and R-73 Archer SRAAMs (Short-Range Air-to-Air Missile). “I never had a tally on any of the bad guys. I rarely saw our wingman. We never put more than 3g on the airplane and we never got inverted. There were missiles and people dying everywhere.”

But I certainly don’t expect the anti F-35 folks to acknowledge it as it goes against the Top Trumps-esque “speed and G’s is everything” line of thinking.

Of course, it wouldn’t fit into the “narrative” of some around here who would like to pretend that BVR combat isn’t viable and/or that BVR missiles aren’t actually lethal BVR…

The USAF and other forces around the world have spent more than a little time simulating the relevant scenarios and have all reached variations on the same result.

The biggest concern is probably not the kinematic performance or the turning ability, but sensor performance..The biggest advantage comes from the significantly lower RCS of 5th generation fighters. What you’d need is extremely fast, and secure data links, Multi mode seeker and the ability to tap into multiple sensor platforms for updates….This is going to be a significant challenge in the coming decades as VLO fighters proliferate..

I think we will see substantial growth in both kinematic and sensor capabilities, but you are certainly right about where the sensor/datalink part of the equation is going. Nobody is going to design a fast new missile that didn’t also incorporate a new generation of seeker and networking.

Motor & wing loading is still limiting factors, aircraft has more potential in improvement than missiles,
i think replacement for Meteor won’t be another missile, it will be DEW,
on a purpose built fighter.

You have it completely backwards. Missiles have steadily out-paced aircraft in kinematic performance.

Think about where things stood when the AIM-7 first rolled out. The fastest fighters of the day could at least hypothetically exceed M2 in a dead sprint and could pull in the neighborhood of 7+ Gs.

50+ years later fighters accelerate a lot quicker and some now have loadout dependent supercruise capabilities, but top speeds haven’t appreciably increased. Most improvements in maneuverability have come in the form of extreme agility at transonic/subsonic speeds. Maximum G-loads have increased to 9-10 Gs, the limit of what a pilot can tolerate for any meaningful period of time.

I am not saying that this isn’t significant progress, it is, but not compared to what missiles have done.

In that same time-frame air to air missiles have seen vast improvements in the range, maneuverability and overall effectiveness. An AIM-120D provides an effective range of at least 5-10x what the early AIM-7s did, and Meteor extends that advantage still further. As more next-generation missiles are developed and enter into service the disparity will only grow.

The same is true when talking about SAMs vs aircraft. In the 50s and 60s dodging SAMs was a viable tactic because fighters were generally more maneuverable than the missiles. Nobody would propose trying the same thing against an SA-20, SM-6, Patriot, Aster, etc. It simply wouldn’t work.

Point about this thread is that the Aim-120C and D missiles are only present at the time of the F-35IOC. The Meteor IOC should coincide with that of the F-35’s, and i expect a F-35 internal carriage version cleared around 2020 or so (meteor)…I am yet to see clear data on actual NEZ range figures for the Amraam or the Mica so cannot estimate with any reasonable accuracy that their NEZ ranges are quite small….Increasing NEZ is not really that hard, Most F-35 users only need to buy Meteors, and the US can simply develop an Aim-120E with propulsion brought over from the T3, if the extremely restrictive NEZ was an imminent threat that is !

The key thing to take away from all of this is that missile capability is steadily improving, which was a key assumption driving the US’s move to the F-35. The more capable missiles become, the more air to air combat will be dominated by longer range engagements and the more important advantages in situational awareness and networking will becoming, exactly the capabilities the F-35 was built around.