Its definitely a goodie …… but it’s also an oldie!!! :p

Now find the airbase with 238 J-6s on it!

As a matter of related interest, does anyone know if Sweden has full access to NATO debriefs? Does a PfP status provide that?
I only ask because I know that in the past Swiss pilots (now also PfP) did not have full access to NATO-only debriefs, mainly when they covered detailed AMRAAM tactics. (as it is, I expect that Swedish pilots could probably teach NATO a thing or two about AMRAAM tactics!)

Any citation? I’ve gone through the revelent parts of “Skunk Works”. Just wondering if I missed it or it was someplace else.

thanks,

Matt

A Lockheed Farnborough press conference many moons ago.

I’m not really disagreeing with you in any big way here, but I think the research aircraft (i.e. X-planes) tag for the JSF CDAs is somewhat misrepresentative. If the requirement had been purely to demonstrate the STOVL systems, the aircraft would have looked very different and been a lot cheaper. As it was, they had to demonstrate other capabilities, such as carrier compatibility etc. By the time all these other requirements were taken into consideration the end result looked pretty much like a fighter requirement to me.

Which is why both companies were bullishly trotting out lots of ‘this is what the production aircraft will look like’ material long before the CDAs got into the air. Is that the behaviour of companies producing research craft?

I’ll concede that Boeing’s CDA was possibly more deserving of an ‘X’ designation because they realised that they had got it wrong but did not have the time to redesign before the CDA phase began. In that case I suppose the X-32 was a research aircraft, but only by default! I’m sure Boeing would rather have had the time to be flying an aerodynamic prototype of their intended production configuration.

EAP – looks nothing like EF2000.
YF-22 – looks nothing like F-22.
X-35 – looks very like F-35.

and projected ‘F-32’ looked like X-32 with tailplanes (or like the X-32 that Boeing would rather have flown)

“Those were the next available X-plane designations.”

That’s not what I meant – why were they in the X category in the first place?

(Official reasons are funding provenance and not wishing to imply any ‘fly-off’ element to the competition, both of which are no more or less plausible, IMHO, than the ‘hiding the F-24’ theory)

Anyway, strictly speaking yours is only a half-true statement, as the ‘next available X-plane designations’ were X-35 and X-36 (X-33 and X-34 had already been assigned). The X-32 designation was originally applied to the CALF/JAST project (forerunner of JSF) and was re-used later for the JSF. Remember the Lockheed ‘X-32’ lift-fan demonstrator?

According to LM the F-22A can supercruise at M1.82.

The YF-22 demonstrated M1.58 and, as has rightly been pointed out, had less powerful engines and a dirtier shape. One would expect the production aircraft to supercruise faster so 1.82 seems a plausible figure.

Max a/b speed is M2.25, limited (like many aircraft) by air friction temperature limits rather than power or shape.

I agree totally that it’s a priorities issue – the F-22 guys are working flat-out right now to get combat trained.

It’s also quite likely that the USAF will only authorize a very safe and unambitious ‘standard’ display routine that falls well short of the aircraft’s (airshow) capabilities.

Just compare the ‘official’ (very dull) F-15 displays of the last few years with the brilliant routines that the Bitburg guys put on in the 80s, before bureaucracy got in the way. I appreciate that there are stricter crowd safety issues these days, but that does not seem to have unduly ‘tamed’ the fast-jet displays of other air forces.