F-15SE is a concept only. Boeing needs to find a “sugar daddy” to pay for its development like UAE paid to develop the F-16 Block 60.

Not quite:

Jones says Boeing still plans to fly a Silent Eagle demonstrator in early to mid-2010 to show capability ahead of any international customer issuing a request for proposals. “International customers want low risk, and to see us test this before an RFP,” he says.

Found it, page 29 http://www.cdi.org/pdfs/stevenson%20f-22%20brief.pdf

Sprey takes a similar stand, and due to his profession, i take it he knows more then enough on “LPI”
http://www.niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=ask_this.view&askthisid=00197

any member quoting Sprey/Kopp, should be banned for week …

Below Mach 0,8 the drag of an empty ET is negliable, when the corner-speed is below Mach 0,8 always. 😉

Really? One EFT and 6 x 500 lb (a moderate load for a Viper) impose a 0.4 M penalty and in your opinion this is negligeable?

By the time of the potential purchase, Brazil and India will be producing much better RAM materials then the current american.
The worse thing the F-35 will bring, is make the world react to the current american technology and advantage.

No it is not!!!
An aircraft having an internal weapons’ bay, is penalized by the extra weight of the structure, skin, and door mechanisms, which is hardly trivial, plus a slight shape compromise, from the aerodynamic ideal.
This extra weight will be translated to the wing, which in turn is going to operate in higher A. Of course the drag in this case is less, but, this aircraft will have to carry its penalty, all the way to and back from the target(s), whistle a non stealth will be clean (real clean) half the way!

That clean aircraft must survive the mission in the first place. And it chances are slimmer comapred to a clean, stealth aircraft.

A conventional fighter that cruises at 0.8 M will consumme more fuel than a F 22 or 35, not to mention the penalties in acceletation and maneuvrabilty.

When a detailed look does show, it is not an big issue till Mach 0,8 or a striker in the cruise. Going supersonic does bring a clean F-16 to the same level.
The best think is, when the ordonance is dropped, the F-16 is clean again, when a F-35 is stubby always. 😉
The F-35 does have small advantages in design load conditions and some disadvantages, when the ordonance is dropped. As long as stealth is of prime importance it does not matter much, when not the F-35 is just the second best choise. See the SH about it, which is still procured.

Small advatage? Are you kidding? A 0.4 M gap isn’t enough for you? Also, in the graph the F 16 was with only one EFT: how often an F 16 went in a strike mssion with one tank ???

Negative.

The ~ 6 bn was for LM. The total cost was over 8 bn. The unit price wao ~ 80 mil: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1136361059607

No, thats the programme cost again, in the UAE’s case minus the $3 billion extra.

Flyaway unit cost is the cost of the aircraft, roughly $25 million in the case of the F16E. Programme cost includes spares, training contracts, simulators, spare engines, support, ground based equipment etc and is usually 1.5 to 2x the cost of the aircraft itself, hence the price of roughly $50 million.

A single spare engine will cost you $10 million or upwards.

But the over-all cost of the UAE deal was ~ 8.5 bil. not 6.8. So the 50-55 mil. is flyaway price.