Do you have a source for this?

Cheers

If Wrightwing put that link, I’ll attach some charts. This time showing not how the F35 would compare against the planes that will replace, but against the planes that it will fly along for decades: Rafale, Gripen, Su 30 MKI.

PS: TooCool_12f, in acceleration chart (s), the shorter the bar, the better the plane…:)

Are you for real? In what reality are you living? Fear of Russian invasion? You really make me laugh. No one in Romania fears that. No one! I am certainly not afraid of that.

Let’s stay serious. The whole defence architecture is designed with Russia in mind. The NATO admission was linked to Russia. And BTW, in his post he didn’t say he’d fear a russian invasion.

Due to our bad relations with Russia we pay the most expensive price for natural gas in Europe.

Hardly. We pay the most expensive price for Russian gas ( an extra 20 $/1000 cubic m. wich is 5% more orthers pay). But since internal production covers 70 % of the consumption we pay ~ 270 $/1000 cubic m. It’s still half the industrial consumers pay and a third household consumers pay in Western Europe.

Back on topic: I, as a Romanian tax payer, don`t want to pay for junk. The idea to exchange 30+ year old MiGs with 20+ year old Lawn Darts is just over my level of understanding. If we want to make agriculture with jet fighters, 2nd hand F-16s is the solution.

I, as a Romanian tax payer, would pay for new aircraft knowing that in the long term military aviation won’t transform itself into comets killing good men.

Well you can start a tax strike, because it is the F 16 blk. 25 that will be purchased. Period. BTW, that’s hardly any surprise. The press announced it from month. Some brand-new block 52 + such as Poland or Greece have would have been nice, but I guess that the budget won’t permit.

Right.

http://www.star-telegram.com/business/story/1764028.html ?

😮 My god ! You really mean that the program is behind the schedule and over budget? I bet it is the first time in the history of aviation…Incredible…

More “bad” news for f 35 :diablo::
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/the-dewline/2009/11/dxb09-f-35-steals-rafale-thund.html

Today’s lesson: Never count out the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

This was supposed to be a big show for the Dassault Rafale. But after the first day it’s already clear the United Arab Emirates isn’t any closer to signing a long-awaited contract.

Meanwhile, the previously beleaguered F-35 — beset by recent cost overrun predictions and a frustrating flight test delay — has stormed back into the picture — big-time. First, Lockheed re-energized its flight test program with two big announcements The BF-1 flight test article finally crossed state lines, launching its epic journey to Patuxent River, Maryland, where it will finally make the transition from forward flight to vertical landing. AF-1, meanwhile, finally got off the ground (see above), becoming the fourth different variant of the F-35 to make its debut flight since 2006.

But the F-35’s biggest moment at the show did not come courtesy of Lockheed public relations department. Instead, it came from Brig Gen Ibrahim Naser Alalawi, deputy chief of the UAE Air Force and Air Defence. Addressing the Dubai International Air Chiefs conference on Saturday, Alalawi shocked the audience by exposing the UAE’s previously secret longing for a fifth generation fighter.

The Gripen NG AESA radar is a variant of the Selex Vixen family. That family of radars has been in development for several years. The Vixen 500E is ready for service, & being built to meet a production order. The SAAB-Ericsson contribution has also been under development for years, & has been tested (including flight tests) with other front ends. Despite this, you express doubts that it will ever be completed, & seem to believe that if it is ever ready for service, that it will take longer to reach that point than it took to develop the 500E.

Apart from your somewhat obsessive urge to bash SAAB, I can’t see any basis for your thinking.

-you oversimplify: is not just about replacing the mechanical antena with an AESA array. The soft takes years to developp
-the doubs I expressed are not about the radar but about the plane; it’s obvious that without a big order (and ~ 12 A/C as for Gripen C is not such) the NG will never see production;
-I did not bash SAAB or Gripen; it’s a decent 4 Gen. plane, ideal for non-NATO countries without stringent demads. OTOH Swedish fanboys are way too funny.

No i’m not confused, the point is they beats F-22 on aerodynamics alone, put TVC on them they will smoke the Raptor on sustained whatetever bar Mach in military power.

As for TVC it doesn’t make Raptor more maneuvrable than them in non-PST flight.

The confusion does not regard the F22 (I can’t tell if w/o TV it would still perform the stunning maneuver it does), but the fact that you took the transient AoA for a sustained AoA capability.

When the F-16 is loaded with the same amount of fuel, weapons, and sensors as the F-35, the F-35 wins hands down.

That one thing the EF/Rafale/Gripen fanboys don’t get it…They live in a fantasy world were fighters fly clean.

It’s like a guy in short and runing shoes point towards a full equiped marine, with 80 lbs on its back, and say: haha, I can run faster than you…