well, first of all, what counts when you change direction is how much lift you can generate… not the AoA… if you can generate more G’s with less AoA, you turn will be tighter than your oponent, all other things being equal (thrust for example) as more AoA (regardless of what design you fly) will generate more drag, requiring more thrust to sustain the manoeuver.
This is true, but incomplete. Don’t forget in scenarios where we are talking about relatively high AoA maneuvers we are talking about dogfighting… and in a dogfight the objective isn’t necessarily to turn harder than your opponent, but to point your nose at your opponent. If an aircraft is trying to point its nose at an opponent across a circle then being able to pull to a higher AoA may indeed be an advantage, even if the increased AoA doesn’t result in a greater G load or turn rate.
Also, in many cases fighters will end up quite slow and won’t be able to pull anywhere near their theoretical maximum g-load anyway. Under these circumstances overall handling characteristics, nose pointing ability, etc, are of key concern. When pilots talk about the F-35’s high AoA capabilities they aren’t talking about merely hitting a number, but how readily controllable the F-35 is under those conditions.
Defensive situations often result in high AOA and low airspeeds. At high AOA the F-16 reacts slowly when I move the stick sideways to roll the airplane. The best comparison I can think of is being at the helm of ship (without me really knowing what I am talking about – I’m not a sailor). Yet another quality of the F-35 becomes evident in this flight regime; using the rudder pedals I can command the nose of the airplane from side to side. The F-35 reacts quicker to my pedal inputs than the F-16 would at its maximum AOA (the F-16 would actually be out of control at this AOA). This gives me an alternate way of pointing the airplane where I need it to, in order to threaten an opponent. This «pedal turn» yields an impressive turn rate, even at low airspeeds. In a defensive situation, the «pedal turn» provides me the ability to rapidly neutralize a situation, or perhaps even reverse the roles entirely.
Note, he isn’t talking about pulling large G-loads. He is talking about the fact that the F-35 remains responsive at very slow speeds and high AoA.
The Rafale has been tested and remained controllable up to 100° AoA, but at such AoA, your aircraft is essentially a giant airbrake. (citing halloweene who may give more sources for that)
That may well be true, it wouldn’t be surprising, but that doesn’t tell us anything useful. Fighters are tested in all kinds of unusual situations in flight test that would be either unachievable under operational conditions or very very ill advised.
Test pilots will intentionally take jets beyond their max speed, max G, max AoA, put the aircraft out of control, test asymmetric loads, etc.
It is perfectly plausible that under at least one set of test conditions a Rafale might have been controllable at 100 AoA. The fact that the designers set the limiter at 29 degrees and not 28 or 30 tells us that they concluded that that was the maximum AoA that the Rafale could be safely/usefully operated by pilots under operational conditions. (While I am not aware of the specific number, the F-35 was also tested to AoA above 50 degrees… but ultimately 50 is where the limits were set.)
If there were additional reasonably exploitable capability inherent in the Rafale design Dassault wouldn’t have arbitrarily set the limiter so much lower.
Speaking of extreme AoA, out of control testing, etc… here is a video of the F-35 undergoing such testing. You can hear them discussing the necessity of disabling portions of the flight control system to allow the test pilots to put the aircraft in out of control conditions. (before allowing the system to “wake up” and recover the aircraft)
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