no one is talking bout knife fights or dog fights but long-mid range BVR combat!!

I assumed 3 out of 5 Eagles got shot down with 6 AMRAAMs…

There are certain reasons why the same weapon would be more effecient onboard the raptor then any other aircraft and some of the are –

1) the raptor supercruises therefore the kinematics of the launched weapon are more/better at a mach 1.6 launch rather then a 0.8 launch = greater range and/or better performance at similar range.

2) because the raptor is Stealth it means that the detection ranges are very tiny as compared to a full RCS jet.. This enables the raptor to manuver freely uptil a range at which the enemy pics it up on radar. Because the detection range (according to the pilots interviews avialable in the mass media) is far far less then the weapon lauch range the raptor is free to get into a favourable position early in the engagement w/o the enemy having to counter it by similar but opposite manuvers..A simple example is as follows – A raptor starts to track a F-15C at 60nm and immediatly climbs and gets into a maximum lateral seperation so that he can turn into the eagle at his own will..All this wile the eagle is blind therefore higly confused..At say 35 nm the Raptor ripple fires 2 aim-120’s and then tunrs in and later sends the MCU’s…It simply means that the raptor is free to get into a favourable position so that he maximizes the NEZ (i there is indeed one) of his weapon.

I agree, the Raptor rules the skies. theres no doubt about that.
However, in a single Raptor against 5 highly capable fighters i would not be so sure.
What are MCUs?

Off the top of my head I don’t recall the size of the wing on the A & B but the C’s is bigger than an Eagle’s 😮

jsf.mil gives 460 square feet… can anyone “translate” this into square meters?
The C has 620 ft2 which looks really big.
Found it: 42.74m2 for A/B
and 57.60m2 on the C.

The wings look awfully small to me. Wonder what the wing loading is going to be.
What looks strange is the front gear which is installed so far up front. But the lift fan needs its space too.
All in all its mean (and fat!) looking beast. They should call it the Corsair III 😉

Why didnt they integrate the Sidewinder stations onto the US Harriers?
Is it because the AV-8B wouldnt be able to carry more than 2 A/G stores anyway when operating from a short deck?

I don’t know how good were these f 15 pilots. But here is a quote from an f 16 pilot from 64th “Agressor” squadron from Nellis (that’s the best USAF has): http://www.codeonemagazine.com/archives/2005/articles/jul_05/airspace/index.html

That is from codeone magazine aka lockheed martin magazine. What do you excpect? Something like “The F-22 is somewhat better than the F-15/F-16, but it doesnt justify the huge price gap…”

The link says it all.
The F-15F was offered to the Saudis as the Fighter part of their F-15 buy. That is because the F-15C was out of production by then but the Saudis went for an all twin seater fleet (though about half of the 72 F-15S are tasked with A/A missions only if I remember correctly).

That is very wrong and exercises of German MiG-29s versus Swiss F-18s clearly show that. BTW, F-18 is only cleared for slightly over 7g.

Unofficially, pilots from my country have done some dogfights with Dutch F-16s and found out that within a dogfight range of speed a typical series MiG-29 is able to outmaneuver with a display-configured F-16AM without radar and combat avionics and that the latter and heavier F-16Cs blocks are even worse. Don’t ask me for proofs, however, I only got claims from talks with pilots.

Since F-16 manages both, there is hardly a doubt that a Fulcrum can do the same.

All Hornets are rated for 7.5gs, but you can press a little red button and pull 9gs without any problems.
This is done to save airframe life (carrier plane…) since in normal use 9gs are almost never necessary.

Reg. dogfights: we all know the objective pilots view. 😀
Also dont forget that the MLU Vipers gained some serious weight while retaining their old engine.