To me it sounds like O’Bryan is saying that it can maintain ~mach 1,2 for 150 miles after reaching a probably higher speed with afterburners. Others (other fighters) claim supersonic cruise until they run out of fuel (sort of what the word cruise speed entails). And why would it only be able to supercruise for 150 miles unless it loses speed?

All I can say is that it is just amazing how far you people are willing to bend over backwards to avoid something you don’t want to believe.

What he said was 100% clear. The F-35 can sustain M1.2 on dry thrust. That is supercruise as most define it.

The comment about 150 miles that everyone here is trying so hard to misunderstand is a reference to a flight profile that includes other flight. The F-35 is neither out of gas after 150 miles nor has it somehow involuntarily slowed down.

Honestly this is just pathetic.

It is actually kind of cute watching some people here to logical acrobatics to try to justify what they want to believe.

First the F-35 was fat and slow and doomed because its opponents would be too fast and always far far too clever for it.

Now that they are beginning to come to grips with the fact that the F-35 will operate at essentially the same speeds as their favorite fighter and will at worst be at a marginal disadvantage by measures of pure kinematics… the goalposts move once again.

In the end of course we have to listen to kiddies explain how they know more about stealth in practical use than the designers of essentially every clean-slate aircraft under development anywhere in the world today.

Rest assured, stealth will start to “work” the moment they can point to a 5th generation plane with their flag on it. Until then, battleships will remain the future.

Fedaykin – To be entirely fair, if someone believed that the F-111 airframe was good for another run around the block, that F110 engines (which were successfully backfitted into other TF30-powered airframes, you will recall) would make it run like a scalded-ass ape, and that a long-range bomber was a better investment than any fighter in the Pacific context (none of which is entirely illogical)…

Ah yes, how about another few thoughts, none of which are “entirely illogical.”

The Australian F-111s represented the last of an otherwise dead breed of planes. A single squadron worth of aircraft that the rest of the world had left behind.

That being the case the idea of investing huge amounts of money into extensively upgrading a handful of obsolete airframes is a simply ludicrous proposal.

Upgrading Australia’s F-111s to a passably modern standard would have been incredibly expensive.

Continuing to operate a white elephant fleet of F-111s would have been incredible expensive.

Running like “a scalded ass ape” is just not nearly as useful in real life as it sounds on a messageboard, especially when you are talking about a non-stealthy platform that would have been limited to delivering cruise missiles to the edge of defended airspace anyway.

The bottom line is that the whole proposal was as laughable as APA’s various attempts to simulate modern air combat.

The most powerful force on the planet (US+NATO) managed to shoot down 5/6 broken Migs (one badly damaged – with ~50% Pk – highly unimpressive) and manged to lost 1 F-117 (with one more badly damaged by some reports), 1 F-16, one Harrier was also reported damaged/destroyed and there were parts of whole A-10 engine all over our fields and you can count some Apaches, UAV`s and many cruise missiles here as well. It is quite even if you ask me.

Quite even?

I guess that depends how you keep score:

The fact is that it was not “quite even.” NATO bombed Serbia until they gave up.

The fact that Serbia was able to hide some of its equipment is irrelevant. What is relevant is that they were decisively defeated without even inflicting meaningful damage on the force facing them. It was about as cheap and easy a war as ever occurs. Libya took longer.

Next I suppose you are going to tell me that some Libyan equipment survived the war and that therefor that one was also “quite even.”

It is worth asking, if you don’t think a 50-66% kill ratio per-shot is sufficient to prove that BVR missiles do in fact “work,” what would it take?

There are very few weapon systems that can be expected to hit and kill more often than they miss in real world conditions.

In war you expect to end up shooting more than you end up killing. That is simply the nature of the beast.

The bottom line of Allied Force is that fairly modern, though not state of the art, Soviet fighters flown by fairly competent pilots proved to be little more than an inconvenience and never once made their way into the sort of turning visual range combat that so many here seem to put such great stock in.

Meanwhile… the Serbian air defenses proved to be utterly incapable of protecting Serbian airspace. The Serbs were bombed into submission, and the war ended.

And I know some people who are convinced that the US is testing recovered UFOs at Area 51.

Being ‘convinced’ is no substitute for real-world data, including trials results.

“Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain.”- Friedrich Shiller

(Isaac Asimov had the same quote only with a question mark, but I doubt he would have tweaked the original if he had lived to see the internet.)

That was several weeks before you registered the latest username. 😉

Yep – and I stand by it.

If people are willing to sign up to defend their country – then their country needs to know if their weapons are effective before they go to war.

Besides, the danger is significantly exaggerated. The actual results would show abysmal failure of the BVR missiles to function as promised.

Ah, who to believe? Every modern military on Earth, or one “Amiga500” who claims to posses insight into air combat that they lack.

Have you ever tried to think through this theory of yours?

If BVR missiles would produce an “abysmal failure,” why does Russia, China, Israel, France, the US, India, and for that matter -everyone else- go to such great lengths to design and field these weapons?

Do you really think their performance properties are unknown?

Try googling “Combat Archer” sometime. Here is a little head start:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:c34FER_2AFAJ:www.dtic.mil/ndia/2011gunmissile/Proctor_Awards.pdf+&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEEShBn12O7tPCfZZMMcdjEKRm8yi50rSL5G8t4lox1ZTIieZNptfVTgsyTuSroiZu4xPTyLtA_gwRkoQL_NlXXddP6ufWCvsrqB5ySFomNXNIxRCaEuLECYRSg60WcSAu_YLdjx3B&sig=AHIEtbQ1-Hd5ONYHQq72vBB7zMgmUgZngQ

The US alone shoots off over 300 operational missiles a year in testing. These shots are against highly maneuverable targets with realistic countermeasures. We are talking about literally thousands of realistic shots, a huge amount of data.

Yet you act like it is somehow a mystery whether these missiles work, and worse, you think needlessly endangering real living breathing pilots to test your goofball hypothesis somehow makes sense.

Why even post here if you are convinced that BVR missiles won’t work, long range SAMs won’t work, stealth fighter designs are pointless(because BVR missile won’t work) and so forth?

You are operating in a completely different reality than that shared by every military on earth.