Just a quick question that has been brewing in my mind – why don’t the USAF and other land based airforces use the F-35C? Are there such insurmountable differences between the two versions? Would it in fact save any money to drop the A version?

Two main reasons:
1. The F-35C costs $15-$20 million more than the A due to increased material usage.
2. The F-35C is g limited.

Why waste internal space on a 9x when you could have an AMRAAM instead? Yes, an internal ASRAAM/9X would require a trapeze launcher which has been drawn up.

Brimsotne/JAGM internal numbers, nothing has been announced.

Storm Shadow weighs 2700lb so it would take up the inside pylon (5000lb class) unless the outside pylon can be rated a little higher (currently 2500lb class). The JASSM weighs in at 2250lb so it can be carried on all external A2G pylons. JASSM also has a longer range than Storm Shadow.

The UK’s 500lb LGB (even in F-35B) is slated for internal carriage and all 1000lb LGB and 2000lb LJDAMs should also fit the F-35A/C.

A patent and a trademark are completely different things

I never said they were the same, or even similar.

patents in China are nothing like those in the USA.

Of that I have no doubt. 😉

Do you even read your own links?

I’ll summarize it for you – Sequence of events:
1. “Research into the DSI was done by Lockheed Martin in the early 1990s.”
2. “The first DSI was flown on 11 December 1996, installed on a F-16 Block 30 fighter” US Patents filed the same year.
3. Two US Patents are granted in 1998.
4. Either by seeing the patent info, seeing the F-16/DSI work or seeing early X-35 info, CAC decides to change the JF-17’s design to include DSI “Work on the DSI was started in 1999”.

Such patents are absurd.

Pretty much sums up China’s whole outlook on ANY patent.

Why are you trying so hard to give them credit where it is not due?

Are the Wright Brothers not credited with the invention of the airplane even though is was just a “tech demonstrator”?

Your own words betray you “JF-17 Prototype 06 is the first plane having DSI even though X-35 preceded it.”

While the JF-17 is the first operational plane to have DSI, they are neither the inventors of DSI (LM) nor the first plane to fly with it (F-16/X-35).

Again with the blurring of history? The X-35 flew YEARS before PT-06.

Um, no. The toe-out of the pylons was to ensure safe separation of bombs & tanks.

“IF”? Really?

The F-22 was not deployed in Libya because it was not needed and the decision was made not to spend airframe hours on a mission where it cannot offer a substantial contribution.

The primary purpose of the F-22 is as an Air Dominance Fighter and the Libya campaign was all about the Strikers.