There’s an interesting “depression” of sorts on the side of the front fuselage, wasn’t there before (or perhaps more likely it’s not actually a depression – the nose, canopy and chines section perhaps sport a new layer of RAM which gives it that appearance).

IMOHO, it’s only the lack of RAM at this specific place, removed as it would have been rendered useless by either the cycled operation of positioning the ladder and climbing aboard or the sprayed fueled during refueling o[operations.

Qua – Li – Ty. Say it once again.

Yes, the Me262 was the most advanced fighter design of WWII. But it was neither reliable neither sustainable and did in the end achieve little. Period.

Ppl often Brag about the perched swarms of 51 forgetting that each of their pilots had to fly from England, cover a larger portion of airspace, were on their own (no radar coverage mostly) and time on station was short, resulting in the end of a near parity during engagement with often isolated section countering massed German units during the initial engagement.

And yes the conditions of worker and work environment are arguments regarding quality. You’ll never achieve something valuable with under-nourished, beaten or plagued by typhus worker* working in dusty, humid salt mines! BMW or Jumo turbojet had 8 hours max life time. DB605 20hours (wich was deemed largely enough given the under 10 hr lifetime of the airframe (accident and enemy fire)). The list is long.

Like I have said earlier, in the present example with the Me262 Vs the 51, the 51 was the quality one force. The Me262 was simply a more advanced design with promising intends. It was not sustainable neither durable. Think (again) of a 1970 USAF fielded with (Y)F-12 instead of F4 in Vietnam 😉

*As you discard so easily the enslaved argument

Northrop tests first E-2D with in-flight refueling

The flight comes three years after US Navy awarded Northrop a $226 million contract to engineer, manufacture and develop the aerial refueling system the carrier-based airborne early warning and control fleet.

“This takes the E-2D to another level, which will bring more combat persistence to the US and our allies,” says Jane Bishop, Northrop’s vice-president for C-2/E-2 programmes, in a statement.

Source:
http://www.flightglobal.com

They are most probably targeting and datlinking coordinates for the shooter (J16 + Pl-XX) that would stay outside the inner ring of AWAC defense. At this level, you certainly don’t want to reveal your position by launching yourself a big smoky missile.

German fighter production level during late WWII were in fact astronomic. Don’t rely solely on the superior total aircraft production number in the US and USSR. The fact that the quality went lower and lower on the Nazi German side (infrastructures, lack of natural ressources, material quality, corruption and conscription of engineer and specialized manpower into the Wehrmacht) should answer your own question: There are no quantity that can prevail without a certain level of quality. Today fast pace of technologies turning even quickly obsolescence into the main attrition factor of say-so large fleet (see 4th Gen Vs 5Th Gen)… 😉

Energy killing (laser, HPMW) would even accelerate this process with now the number of kills being somewhat irrelevant to the number of shooter.

Difficult to say. Except flights confusion and loss of communication after the AWACs went down, there are not much differences with what would have achieved a bunch of F16 in front of a pair of F35/22.

Video: Boeing starts taxi testing the T-X trainer

http://defense-watch.com/2016/12/16/video-boeing-starts-taxi-testing-t-x-trainer/

Cockpit Hinges are now modified.

Mine was more of a political comment, which you can’t deny, just looking at facts.
I am 100% with you on the technical argument.

@Comanche:
I thought you’ll appreciate the today news of the FAA lifting the ban on H225 flight*:

US FAA approves return to service of H225 helicopter

“We will follow this in the coming months with an airworthiness directive, but the AMOC provides the approval to accomplish what needs to be done,” says the FAA.

Although covering only five helicopters on the US register, Airbus Helicopters sees the permission as an important step in the type’s rehabilitation.

However, flight bans remain in place in Norway and the UK, and there is still some work to do to convince customers of the Super Puma’s safety.

Source:
FlightGlobal.com

*added here even if this is de-facto a civil aviation news 😉