+1 with ww here (exercise scores vs legacy & Rafales), though one has to keep in mind that those “enemies” where restricted to use tactics of an anticipated enemy. Those kill ratios won’t necessarily work out in a true shooting war as not everything would work as advertised in the paper brochures. Missiles missing the target due evasive manoeuvres plus counter measures and equipment which can’t be simulated if you haven’t the exact technology to do so.

-1 wrt everyone else being even more disadvantaged vs. the F-22 without AWACS etc. If the F-22 can’t be detected at any reasonable range even by AWACS etc. the loose of such would hurt an F-22 more than the other aircraft!

You must check the F-16’s velocities in the 29s-16s training, 150knts, 200knts on most of the F-16s scores, very low speed handling is quite important, is still QUITE important, pilots lose lots LOTS of firing oportunities, hardware and software are no way reliable as you think, and that on a free ECM fighting.

High AoA characteristics are still quite important and relevant for modern air combat

If you want to bully a lone 29 with 10 F-16s + AWACS, your fantasies will become true…of course

You entirely missed my point here. I spoke about high alpha passes a demonstrated during airshows, this is useless in combat, except for presenting yourself as a target. AoA performance matters when you manoeuvre and change direction, the ability to do so quickly (transitional AoA) or to sustain a certain AoA while turning is important. It doesn’t matter if an aircraft reaches a 50° sustained AoA in trimmed flight conditions, when it is unable to sustain or even briefly achieve it at a glance in a manoeuvring fight.

@BW,
well having a good range on “huge RCS” targets doesn’t sound overly special, not bad either, but certainly not super duper upper radar.

Yes , my bad again . I always forget that the F-22 doesn ‘t have any ECM or ECCM systems . So , the Raptor can ‘t jam an incoming missile , or anything else for that matter . It is said that the latest incarnation of the APG-77 is capable of jamming , but for no more than 60 seconds or it … burns .

ECCM is not a system per se, but measures taken by the radar to counter counter measures, hence ECCM. The APG-77 certainly offers ECCM capabilities. Jamming might be possible once the EA function is implemented into the APG-77, whenever that is.

Yes and by pretty much everybody who flew the Rafale or trained with/against it .

Can you provide a single source where a pilot particularly praises the Rafales radar (PESA) in its current form. I’ve seen a couple of favourable comments about the OSF TV part, Spectra, MMI, sensor fusion and flight controls, but never a particularly positive remark about the radar.

@AD,
fine listing, production is already running, even if it is “just” LRIP in which LM produces more aircraft than other programmes built as full rate. And the 10% might be completed yet and even that is a very small fraction, while production is already running. But it shows how its fans are even defending the non defend able, critical views are dismissed as naysayer opinions. The ever same game here.

@Maus,
long lead items aren’t the entire engines, just components of them.

You mean those opinions better suite your agenda ww, don’t you!?
In other programmes the fatigue testing has been concluded prior series production commenced, so that the lessons learned could be applied for the production models.

Here is a table form the development airframe fatigue test on Eurofighter:

Damage Classification
Test Hours Fastener Minor Significant Substantial Total
up to 6000 6 15 10 0 31
6001 – 12001 10 14 3 1 28
12001 – 18000 3 19 7 3 32
Total 19 48 20 4 91

The important point here is that this testing was done prior serial production began. We don’t know how the crack is classified on the F-35 airframe, but I would tend to say it is at least minor, but probably significant.

But those 35-40 mln $ development costs aren’t included in such contracts. Development costs are separately covered in most cases and this is just LRIP.