@Y-20 Bacon,

That is a very, very bold claim and one I don’t buy into. Past, and current experience pretty much proves Yakovlev don’t have as much experience.

Also, there’s no point blaming the demise of the USSR for the fate of the Yak-38. The UK were also going through major defence cuts when the Harrier was in development.

faulty analogy.
demise of USSR occurred over 20 years after the first flights of the harrier and Yak-38 program which are rooted in the 60s.
UK had the benefit of an economy that allowed it to further develop the harrier to fix its flaws until today.
Yakovlev used the experience to build the super vstol fighter, the Yak-141, which is superior to the Harrier in every performance parameter.

Out of Interest, how come no ones talking about the Czech L-159? is that out and out for France? Should have been a good option, apart from the point made strongly about the Hawk. Another Anglo-French collaboration should show interesting results like the Jaguar.

its a plane made with 1970’s philosophy. no one wants it other than the Czech government.

You do realize that these for next generation PW/MTU geared engines. it has no competition with current generation airplanes.

and they still surpassed them! wow.

another option,
Herkus for Rafales with Turkey cuz the French love turkeys

Yes I am serious.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, good thing for you Frankvw was reading this thread

Yes definitely should be included. You are right, in many ways the LCA is just like the gripen and in fact potentially uses more composites.

Maybe we should also include the FCK1 which is being upgraded.

please stop swearing 🙂

if we include the ching kuo, then that would be heads ovr jf-17, t-50, and tejas because of its longer established history.