Probably cheaper to crash a Taranis than three F-22s. In fact it’s probably cheaper to crash a Taranis than operate three F-22s for a year. ~$1m for every 20 flying hours. Have any of those Boeing GBIs actually hit anything in the last 5 years. How much do they cost each? All they have to do is crash and they can’t even do that properly. Poor Yanks. Not easy being a US taxpayer anymore.

http://mostlymissiledefense.com/2012/07/24/ballistic-missile-defense-how-much-does-a-gbi-interceptor-cost-july-24-2012/

And don’t you think it’d be bloody difficult to cover up a crash in this day and age anyway?

Checked my passport lately.. and it says French :rolleyes:

If you feel my last sentence as being too offensive, I will gladly delete it on your simple request. No need to raise another war of words with the …

“Yanks”

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If India does not use this opportunity advance it’s manufacturing it will go backwards compared to China.

Yes, you are zeroing on the very essence of the problem: PakFa for India or T50 for China.

India is locked in a dilemma, what HAL refuse to acknowledge for financial reasons (in the old principle that is far more profitable to upgrade old airframes than build new ones).

This is only bluff. On both sides. And both hve time. If I was LM I wld stay way of of it. You can’t hve both treasure – a T50 and an F35 in your AF. Forget abt it.

An interesting perspective of a drone operator

a GQ Magazine interview

Don’t be fooled up by the shade of sensationalism and boy’s brotherhood theme. It’s is indeed an interesting read.

Many of the bids where the F35 win are either very questionable in nature, not actual tenders or tenders based on utterly deflated cost projections (just look at ROK, the F15SE wins, then the tender is restarted with new demands that only can be met by the worlds only 5th gen fighter on the market).
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I wil tell yo something. The only things that is questionable is ppl pushing late 80’s design to do the 2020+ job. it’s like pushing your Grand’Ma in a Miss Teen contest.

Those guys arguing, debating, bending the reality to the poinht that we can call it a new art shld better spend their time on the drawing board.

The only one who stays out of the lot as a new design is the Raf. Not because it’s made in France, but simply because it is complete or achieved and can compete fully as 4++ gen without resorting to mind twisting projections.

Frankly this is a News and debate thread for the F35. Take it as it or leave it. Plastering the F35 with mud without arguments does not deserve you or the others in the lot well.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]221891[/ATTACH]

reminder: 1inch=25.4mm

😉

June 2012? Or was the article updated?

Well, I hve no prob with that. I stated myself very early that the duct tech of the T50 is highly ingenious.

What I say is only that it would be fair to roots the T50 design somewhere near the 22. It’s not like saying that the Russians needs to spy on LM to draw a superb design. Please, don’t read me that way. But engineering is first a matter of observation.

Regarding the F22 (I will be OT briefly), Yes the ducts are highly S shaped. But this shape is there only for the radar waves. The air stream does not “see” it (That is why it might not hve any compressing geo in the inlet for the supersonic regime). But I am not sure if you can understand me trough the language barrier and my poor English.

The 50 sports an improvement in this field: a new, refined and ingenious solution, more prone for speed and agility. Note however that it seems that it hve some persistent boundary layer ctrl problems at high Beta and that the images released for the 5+/6G engines seems to perpetuate the S-duct philosophy.

Anyhow, it’s apparent that the 50 is a vastly superior design that the J-something and I won’t be surprised to see rapidly a redesigned inlets geo surfacing for the F35.

Regarding the structural re-enforcement that you hve identified some time ago on the structure, I guessed earlier that this is the sign of some roll limitations, either due to a to heavier equipment, unexpected load distributions or less than expected composite strength (quality on overall qty). Those are rather expected hiccup in the building process of such a radical design.

EDIT:
Concerning my “little theory'” regarding the blades’s metallic edge, I was not thinking of a block of metallic material but more to a thin foil or flashed metallic coating on the LE…