Stealth “edges”, along RAM and overall shaping affect AESA radars just like MSA dishes. Need proof, look at the record of F-22s bagging F-18E/Fs which have a MUCH better AESA than the J-10.

The radar unit that picked up the F-117 was not jammed because of poor planning on the USAF part and good tactics on the ADA’s part. The USAF were flying the SAME ingress routes night after night without much divination. This allowed the ADA to setup a trap for the inbound F-117s (there were 4 in that package). They had observers watching the airport and positioned along the ingress route. They called into the ADA HQ as they visually tracked the F-117 while it flew in-country. When the package was close enough, the ADA turned on the radar and waited for the F-117s to fall into the trap. Since the F-117s did not have a RWR they did no know that the radar was searching for them. Finally, one was detected at about 20km, IIRC, and was shot at. The other F-117s in the package were not intercepted (so much for long range detection by old radar).

To make a long story short, the F-117 was basically flying blind (unable to detect radar or missile launch), into a trap of its own making, and had no way to defend itself.

The F-35, OTOH, will have better planning, will not be flying blind, and will be able to defend itself if & when it is ever engaged.

Wings are too short and too head-heavy

That’s what being an unstable design is all about. You are also forgetting about body lift.

Isn’t F-35 supposed to be introduced after 2016?

That is the IOC date. This is its entry into the service for training and evaluation.

No rearview visibility at all

Not critical thanks to auto-tracking with EODAS.

by the looks of it, J-10 Generation Zwei’s AESA can find it from over a 100 miles away.

Really? Never base radar detection on “looks”.

Pardon the pun, but the F-35’s future is “certainly” not uncertain. The DoD has continually backed the program and it has been doing quite well over the last couple of years of it’s development.

While it cannot be known exactly how many will be built and when (the same can be said of the JF-17), there is no doubt that it will makeup the majority of the DoD’s (and Partner & FMS nation’s) multi-role assets in number and capability

PT-04 with DSI was a prototype, AA-1 was not.

If prototypes count, the X-35 flew in 2000.

Because the F-16 in 1996 only tested it up to Mach 2 (the F-16’s operational max).

The flight tests covered the entire F-16 flight envelope and achieved a maximum speed of Mach 2.0.

We will have to wait for either updated info from the J-10B or J-20 for DSI info above Mach 2.

They tested the first DSI for the JSF program on the F-16.

For all its advantages, I am not sure why the newer version of the F-16 (the IN, V, etc) have not had it included.

http://www.codeonemagazine.com/f35_article.html?item_id=58

For those interested, if you use the HTML <img> code instead of bracketed [IMG] code<br />
then you can control the picture size.</p>
<p>Example, the first pic above was posted using:</p>
<p>< img src="http://www.codeonemagazine.com/images/media/2010_F16_DSI_02_1267828237_7281.jpg"<br />
alt="Front View" height="600" width="800" / > </p>
<p>as opposed to the older way of:</p>
<p>[ IMG ] http://www.codeonemagazine.com/images/media/2010_F16_DSI_02_1267828237_7281.jpg[ /IMG ]</p>
<p>which does not allow control over the pic size.

$100 mil in “Then Year” dollars is fine because the latest estimate from LM of $65 is in 2010 dollars. They are virtually one in the same.

The F-35 was never $40 mil, especially in buy-year dollars. Besides, cost is not a performance spec (the whole point of this sub-thread) .

On the T-38 front – to – F-22/35 front, isn’t that the point of LIFT?