That is E/F style externally mounted frame and glass.

I do recall reading that some P-40s were used, which is great.. Wikipedia: “For the battle sequence in North Africa, two actual Curtiss P-40 Kittyhawks in Desert Air Force paint schemes were used, accompanied by cloned images of them or by computer-generated planes.”

And I am pro real airplanes…I just realistically think we will never see anything like BoB movie again. Who knows, maybe with the advancement of drones and RC aircraft and small cameras…someone might try some practical flying dogfights using that technology.

“The problem with a lot of modern aviation films these days is that the CGI developers seem to have never seen a plane fly. Flyboys? Red Baron? Red Tails? ” This seems to be the crux of the problem, there is good CGI and bad CGI. Recent aviation movies seem to have been stuck with bad CGI. I did and do find Flyboys (in spite of the insane physics) fairly enjoyable, Red Baron reasonably serviceable. Red Tails however is just not worth even mentioning.

This was a qualitative comparison vs. the F-16, in which it didn’t fare well. But, then, the F-35 is not supposed to be an F-16, its more like a F-111 lite.

Which is fine (no surprise here), but that is not how it is being billed , particularly for foreign gov’t looking to buy it. It is absolutely being sold to the local constituency as the best air defence fighter bar one (the F-22). Particularly here in Canada.

Air max range is (usually) in reference to large bomber sized targets. I presume that is the case here.

The radar of the Ka-27M is Kopyo-A AFAR made by Phazotron-NIIR. It is operating in centimeter band, max. range is ~250km (no idea against which target)
http://kret.com/en/news/3578/

Assuming the cost increase is substantially due to inflation, to me it seems relative. It is not like India writes a check for $20B and then waits.
This things are done on schedule payments, and amortized over many years.

If the economy looks to improve, the rupee value should to…thus lowering the cost over time.

Ah, got it, TY

The closest analogy is the F-22 (same manufacturer, stealth, etc). It has yet to achieve (as of 2013) even 60% mission availability (this is as per the documents in FBW’s links). This is almost 10 years since F22 first being in service. Granted, one of the complicating factors is the stealth paint, which apparently the f-35 does not utilize.

It is also still missing many features (no aim-9x OR aim120D till 2020).

Suffice it to say, yes the F35 will improve it’s sortie rate and features list over time, but how long will it take? If it follows a similar trend (and there is NO evidence to suggest it is looking any better), we could easily be looking at 2023 and still have a mission availability under 70%, features still not complete, etc.

The f-22 has improved every year, though it has yet to achieve it’s goal.
http://www.gao.gov/assets/670/663196.pdf
The f-35 will probably suffer from the typical teething troubles the U.S. Fighter fleets experience when being introduced. Once lessons are learned by operational use, they SHOULD improve. The supers are about the only fighter in the US fleet that came out of the gate strong.

Good Lord, I sincerely hope they do not pick the F-35 just to save a bit of bureaucratic money. Without the bureaucrats and parliament pushing the sole source issue, Canada would likely have already forked over billions and billions of dollars. I hate saying it, but in this situation….yay for the bureaucrats.