The arrogance by some (not all) of you is simply astounding to me though I suppose it shouldn’t be at this point.

Quick show of hands……..who here has actually flown an airplane? As in ever? I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again…..you don’t know just what it is you don’t know. You don’t know HOW MUCH you don’t know. Every time I leave terra firma, I come back down having learned something new, and often I’m surprised I didn’t know that said “something” sooner.

I’ve not flown the F-35 myself, but I can tell based upon the various responses I’ve read that some of you have no earthly idea what you are talking about, and you are simply reading things you find on the internet as proof of your “facts”…I know this because a long time ago I used to be guilty of it. I thought I knew way more than I did, and I look back now and realize how wrong I was on many occasions. Don’t fall into that trap. Admit your commentary is mostly conjecture, and perhaps try and conjure up an educated debate as opposed to baseless claims that have no basis in fact.

EDIT: I must admit that I viewed the idea of posting to this thread (and most of the ones on the forum that devolve into simple arguments) as like posting a politically charged statement on social media. I know that posting to this thread is a bad idea, and most of the responses I’ll get will be highly negative, but I simply couldn’t help it. I’ve watched with growing sadness over the years as this forum has greatly devolved into a shadow of what it used to be.

I agree — I have of course never flown anything, and at least I try to be humble in approaching these difficult topics. I am fully aware that my ignorance is much bigger than my knowledge about these things.

I hope I am not adding too much noise to the various threads, if somebody feels that I do, please let me know.

Perhaps all of us should think twice before posting.

Edit: perhaps a few should think thrice… 🙂

Gripen C with 2XIRIS-T, 2XMeteor, 8XGBU-39 SDB, Litening G3, gun Bk27:

https://twitter.com/GripenNews/status/704748477683732480/photo/1

Not too shabby for such a tiny bird.

Has there ever been a SAM with a 200+ mile engagement zone? By all means let them buy fighters that radiate like a barn.
They are just kidding when they say anti-access. BTW my case stands the weapon system is a generational transformational leap over a SA-2. As soon as you take off your in the missile NEZ.

4.5 Gen + Growler/Wild Weasel + stand-off can probably still get the job done, however F-35 will do it simpler, with less resources and less risk.

No need to exaggerate though.

Nobody will cancel the F-35 at this point in time, not even Trump.

I don’t really understand the aerodynamics, but my impression from reading what the Norwegian test pilot has written, is that the F-35 is going to be quite a dog fighter.

F-16 has a better T/W than Gripens.

There was also implications that super cruise was now a requirement to catch an airliner, which again, makes one wonder how even an uprated hornet ever managed. Is that engine now standard on c and d hornets?

Lastly the uprated hornet, I bet was not done to catch airliners, but for combat purposes?

Thank you loke. Not trying to be rude. A bit shocked here haha.

If we want to say there are better interceptors. Ok. If we want to say there are cheaper interceptors ok. But saying F-35 can not intercept? To much

F-16 has better TWR than Gripen, however TWR is not the only component…

There is probably a reason why the F-16 was not chosen in Switzerland, and why F-16 was not invited in the last rounds of Swiss fighter competitions.

Switzerland has always had higher requirements in some areas than others, and that is probably why the F-16 (and Gripen C) was never chosen. However F-16 fanboys should take notice: F-18 was chosen and Switzerland has been very happy with it (at least from a performance perspective).

As stated previously the F-35 would IMHO be able to meet those specific requirements (but may fail on others like noise; it may also be difficult to accept for a population becoming gradually more “pacifist”).

Edit:

Meanwhile, the lengthy nature of the Swiss aircraft procurement process, reinforced by the embarrassments of the Mirage Affair, resulted in the simultaneous acquisition of a new fighter to eventually replace the Mirage. The Swiss considered the Dassault Rafale, Dassault Mirage 2000, the IAI Lavi, the Northrop F-20 Tigershark, and the BAE Systems/Saab JAS-39 Gripen fighters before choosing the McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet and General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon for a fly-off evaluation held in May 1988.[28][29] From that competition, the Federal Council chose the Hornet in October 1988. The Hornets were to be virtually “off-the-shelf” models, nearly identical to those operated by the U.S. Navy but with stronger titanium alloy frames for an anticipated 30-year service life.

However the competition was reopened in 1990 to allow for a reconsideration of a European fighter, the Mirage 2000-5. In June 1991 the choice of the Hornet was reconfirmed, and the political struggle to have its purchase approved by referendum began. In the meantime, the Soviet Union was dissolved, and with its dissolution the Cold War ended.

So the Hornet won against F-16, and Gripen, but also against the Mirage 2000-5… clearly a light fighter did not meet the Swiss requirements.

Do you also mean to say only half of the French fighter fleet is capable of QRA? They don’t bother with interceptions when they’ve got only Mirages at hand?

Actually, there have been at least one instance where the Mirage did not succeed in intercepting a US F-15 that was “having some fun” many years ago. I can’t find the reference right now, will look for it later..

I am not sure if the F-16 would have done much better than the Mirage in that instance; I am sure also the Gripen (C) would also not have made it.

My guess would be that the F-35 with it’s huge tank and high TWR would have made it (as would the Typhoon and F-22 of course — probably also the Rafale).

Anyway, why are we discussing this?

Dassault is a commercial enterprise. The more it sells, the better. It doesn’t stop trying to sell as soon as it makes one sale. It moves on to the next possible customer. If it stops selling, it stops living. And it knows that.

Yes, but having the first export customer is considered very important, and perhaps they were willing to make an extra effort to get the first export customer. Now that they have two export customers they will probably revert to focusing on the profit margin; thus they are not willing offer a “special deal”.

And if India is not willing to pay what the French demand the deal will not go through.