Developing technology is expensive. You can describe the US as “throwing money” at problems. I could say that Europe can’t be bothered to fund its defense industry. What is happening today with these advanced engines is something that has unfolded over and over again.
There is no ‘Europe’. If there was a single collective European military-industrial-financial pool the forces and investment picture would be ridiculously improved even without a net increase in spending.
The difference isn’t ‘vision’, it’s money — pure and simple.
The US is willing to make the long-term investment necessary to develop new technologies.
And it should be applauded for that. Indeed, it should be doing more of that sort of thing — rather than e.g. cancelling JDRADM so as to maintain a handful of strategically useless worn-out F-16s in service for another couple of years. You won’t see me playing down the importance of R&D.
Yes, “limitations” like the ability to withstand carrier operations, including the requirement for large bring-back payloads, or the greater deliberate use of built-in-to-the-airframe LO features, or a higher payload.
Rafale is a carrier-capable aircraft too and yet it doesn’t need wunderbar EPE engines to meet basic performance standards for a fighter aircraft. Nor does vanilla Hornet for that matter.
Sign In
