4- NO F-15 HAS BEEN LOST IN COMBAT TO THE DAY.

That is not true, however, no F-15 has been lost in air to air combat. 😉

Those would be F-15Cs, they would need a fair bit of work to give them the sort of capability that the E models have and are rather older to boot.

Daniel

To date, those would be F-15A I think, the Cs went to the ANG or to Nellis.
Wouldnt make much sense, they are really old (and A/A only). You might aswell keep the F-111 a little longer instead.

Thats what I would do anyway. The extra cost of a new airframe as a stop gap should be higher than keeping the F-111 until F-35 is ready.

That’s true when we talk about the French R-530 missile (see below), the ones above are US-made Falcon missiles.

I know that, but so far I have seen Swiss Mirage pics with one Falcon only. I wondered why the missile was not exactly on the centerline, assumed it was because of the SEPR rocket. Now I know better. 😀

PII, I dont think the centerline tank plus missiles would fit. The centerline tank wasnt an operational option anyway since its subsonic afaik.
The SEPR rocket however is the sime size as the rear fuselage fuel tank so thats possible. No guns with the rocket though, as that space is used for rocket fuel.

He probably wanted to get some F-16 experience. 😀

sorry but they didnot say it is equiped either. and the manufacturer figures are the only figures. the rest are just secondary sources. even it is against the logic that fighter with 1 ton heavier engines and larger structure with traditional materials have only 1 ton weight difference.
the is true for Su-27 vs Su-30. Su-30 is 2 ton heavier than Su-27 but in every website range is mentioned the same as 3000 KM. but in manufacturer site Su-27 has 3530 KM range vs 3000KM for Su-30.
http://www.knaapo.ru/eng/products/military/index.wbp

Then show me the empty weight figure from the manufacturer. Or show me any source that says 20 tons.
Also remember the SH is no small aircraft, pretty close to an F-15, and its a carrier fighter.

Oh, and the Boeing website says “Maximum combat radius without refueling: over 1,000 nautical miles”.

Could you post the range figures you have on the Strike Eagle, SH, JSF, and Raptor??

I havent seen reliable date for the SH, but its said to have less range than planned. I have read 11% more than a legacy Hornet which is far less than the requirement was (40% more I think). Wikipedia currently says 350sm.
For the Strike Eagle i honestly dont know, but you can be sure it has the longest legs of all US fighters – with CFTs.
The Raptor has a subsonic radius of almost 600 miles: http://www.afa.org/magazine/jan2005/0105raptor.asp
The F-35 is said to have a “600+nm” radius, taken from JSF program brief at jsf.mil. Actually, I have also seen much less than 600 miles for the Raptor which is no wonder. It carries not much more fuel but has two engines with higher bypass ratio compared to the smaller single engined F-35 with lower bypass ratio.

Now this is not a completely clear recollection but isn’t the RCS reduction tech of the Raptor a generation behind that of the Lightning and therefore still requiring significant maintenance to its integrity. Would the RAAF not just be trading one hangar queen for another.

The Raptor is designed to require less maintenance than the Eagle. So it shouldnt be bad i.e. less time for airframe/avionics/engine but more for its stealth features. Besides, the F-35 RCS stuff may find its way to the Raptor.