The 4th gen fighters had all pretty much the same effective speed, except for the F-18 and tornado F-3. At least the F-18 and tornado had good excuses for that, the F-18 being a navy fighter and the tornado was not meant to face fighters.

On another hand the F-35 is massively outclassed against the PAK-FA in terms of effective speed, that is the problem.

The program past the Block II+ Is looking pretty thin so there is room to work at that with a new block III (with the older one having been shelved) if that is a pressing requirement. The FY18 budget is expected to bring a host of goodies for air-superiority systems (Fighter AOA, AWACS AOA, missiles, and sensors etc) with an eye out into the future so perhaps this is something they can look at.

Maybe the AIM-9X block III has been cancelled because it could not be ejected from the bays of the F-35, I don’t know. The primary goal of the missile was to give the SH 2 more BVR missiles in a2g configuration on the wingtips. I don’t know what’s up with the CUDA or the next gen short range missile.

Had the 9X bl 2 been designed to be ejected as well as rail launched it would have solved the problem for the F-35 but initially they wanted an extendable rail launcher for the internal bay. It’s been cancelled ( doh ) so they have to carry the HOB missiles outside.

Whatever the next generation proposal from LM turns out to be, its a virtual guarantee it won’t look like anything above. They aren’t going to release anything that will give a sneak peek into what their team is doing.

This design is quite good. That kind of intake enables to have a flat fuselage and the wing is the extension of the intake. The side bays can be designed for 2 more missiles. That’s pretty good idea, I had that idea in fact hehe..

If they chose that that design it will surely evolve. But the 6th gen may look completely different than regular fighters so we’ll see. They’ll probably want a lot of range.

Ok, first off you claimed you posted the F-35A KPP mission profile. I pointed out you did not, it is from Norway briefing for F-35A JSM mission. Next, you need to what different altitudes are classified as. What did I say “The entry and egress are at Med altitude for the KPP”- now look at the graphic you posted see where it says “egress at 25,000 ft, combat at 20,000 ft” those are medium altitude. Lastly, what does the AMRAAM have to do with JSM deployment? The F-35’s KPP is written for JDAM deployment. And again, the mix may differ from each variant, but they all include medium and high altitude.

The range from the particular mission for Norway gives a indication of the kind of range the plane is capable of. With a relatively light load the F-35 can reach 610nm if it flies most of the time at 30kf. It is not a 2000lbs JDAM but for the JDAM it would obviously be less. With AMRAAMs the difference would likely be small.

You obviously didn’t read the link. First off, does not have to be mach .6, the optimal cruise speed could be .65, .7, .75,.85 whatever. The point is, flying a CAP mission involves High altitude and optimal speed to increase range (no matter what platform you are talking about) Notice where it mentions a minute of combat? So, no it is not just a matter of flying out to 750nmi, there is combat time involved.

This issue is, you don’t really know what you are talking about. I’m sure by the sound of your posts that you assume that fighters are flying along at mach 1.5 all the time in afterburner. Do everyone a favor, go look up “USAF mission planning” “mission profile”, google the from the Brazilian fighter competition to see the CAP mission graphics, then come back when you are not talking rubbish.

1 min of combat, is that a joke or what? All this sounds like a LM propaganda to fool idiots to think the F-35 can do a2a at 760nm. Won’t work for people with critical thinking skills. Like I said even if it can do it, it is a pretty useless figure with little operational utility.

And BTW in my initial comment about the range I said that 760nm would be a bit of a stretch. If they had said 680nm or something like that I would have said ok probably.

And hum no I don’t think a fighter necessarily spends so much time in supersonic huh. But in some case when it is sent to intercept enemy planes yes it does and in that case the range would be a lot less obviously.

Every single manufacturer is going to use a scenario that plays to the strength of their aircraft by comparison. Simply put John, which aircraft has a longer combat radius on internal fuel? Which aircraft could fly a cap mission to 750 nmi and be 9g capable throughout?

1 min, you call that a CAP? AHAHAH! And what if the F-35 has to escape on afterburner because the enemy turned out to survive better than expected? lol I’d love to see what happens. Of course the F-35 is so good that it would never happen. 😀

Again, talking without knowing what you are saying. Each variant has a different KPP mission profile and the ALL include combat time. The f-35’s includes ingress and egress at medium altitude.

Which would be true of any interception profile, but that is not what Spudman’s graphic is referring to.

You’re kidding or what? Even if it can do 760nm it doesn’t mean much, it could hardly use its afterburner at that range. Unless it does its a2a mission without using its afterburner I don’t see the point.

Why would the F-35 have a flight profile so different that it would make such a big difference, that makes no sense. The only possibility like I said is that a few minutes of air combat are included in the a2g profile.

Here‘s the mission profile for the CTOL. Most of the mission is done at high altitude.

Fortunately I’m here to call your bull**** AHAHAH!

Or maybe you’re gonna say that the F-35 flies at mach 0.6 during an a2a mission to save fuel… right? go for it I’m waiting. LOL!

The F-35 being stealthy it might be able to use subsonic a2a tactics to lower it IR signature in some cases.

Would a weight reduction of 8% with no reduction in drag lead to a range increase of over 20%? That sounds like a stretch.

Could be… in either case the basic point remains the same. At 3F the F-35 will be capable of undertaking the full range of missions that it can expect to be assigned with the exception of a handful of exceptionally rare scenarios that are covered by other planes. Once Block 4 rolls around we can expect to see a greater variety of more specialized weapons integrated.

This whole line of debate is more than a little silly. If the F-35 can’t be considered fully operational without a dedicated anti-ship missile, anti-radiation missile, and a nuclear strike capability then not one of the Eurocanards are fully operational yet themselves.

The F-35 program has moved more slowly than was planned, but it has still moved significantly quicker than the Eurocanards, delivering more capability earlier. (even if we use 2008 as the date for a “multi-role” Rafale, albeit a very limited multi-role capability without a targeting pod, that is still 17 years after its first flight. The equivalent date for the F-35 would be 2023, by which time we are talking about Block 4.)

The F-35 has some concurrency costs, but those costs prevent there from being any orphaned planes like the Tranch 1 Eurofighters or Gripen As. (or needing to see planes gutted and rebuilt in the case of the first Rafales.)

The rafale was delayed because of funding issues, not because of technical issues. The decision was made to replace the crusader ASAP with a french plane instead of the F-18 so it was extremely urgent to field the rafale M. The rafale is a pretty cost effective program, considering how much it cost to develop and field, and also considering that there was a naval variant.

The F-35 is a program that had a huge funding compared to the rafale. It had huge cost overruns and was delayed because of lots of technical problems. And the F-35C has poor high speed performances and still has problems with its wings. I think France did a pretty good job in comparison with the funds available, and btw you rarely hear French complain about the rafale, because they don’t have the impression that the program has been such a mess. On another hand, it looks like most Americans are critical or even hate the F-35 because they think it was a rip off.

Yeah I forgot about the ASTOVL huh. That’s the way the LM-JSF should have been built with the 3BSD design. And the idea that a delta or delta canard is not stealthy is BS, for instance the FB-22, Boeing’s F/A-XX, naval F-23, etc.. Building the JSF was not the right idea, the CV became a dog and the CTOL is not so good in TS and SS.

You realize that the F-35 have tails instead of canards due to CV, do you? Not sure what your fixation is on bagging on STOVL

For sure you don’t realize that several naval planes have no HT ( rafale, and concepts like F-23N and Boeing’s 6the gen ), maybe you forgot that. :rolleyes: