@TomcatVIP
Opps, false friend there, paritetico mean that in MALE 2025 the partecipants are all at the same level and they would have a similar structure also with a new fighter.
He cannot clearly say we are interested to get it but have to wait until the new elections.
Not so sure if it is a good idea, as much as I want my nation to get a part on a new european fighter I fear that going all together will turn into a Tornado/Typhoon style mess again: too many parties involved, too much different specifics, too much infighting between industries and politicians .
I would prefer a F-D-E initiative centered on Airbus and a I-UK or even an IT-UK-SW one centered on Leonardo/ Bae Systems/Saab .

Yes, project is on a very initial phase, so no sense to argue about something that still doesn’t exist neither on paper.
What we know is that a proposal was made by one part and accepted by other. Period.
When new information would surface this thread would surely be useful while actuallyit have lost its track.
Only thing that can add from my part is that Leonardo (and it means also our government also) has showed some interest in it either.

@ TR-1
Yes, of course.
Russian Navy has the control of the Artic Zone of Operation/Front in which the Northern fleet is located hence it control also the planes protecting its aereospace.

…also because such discourses completely forgo the real industrial, operational and economical issues about this development.
France and Germany(+Spain) have a great common aereonautical and defence industrial base in the form of Airbus and Eurocopter, no one of them have partecipated in the development of F-35 and didn’t plan to buy it anyway but having Eurofighter, Rafale however give them the opportunity to take the necessary time to develop and produce a new generation fighter without having any serious downfall in their self defence capability, a plane with excellent exp’ort possibility, even toward Italy and UK itself that would need a substitute for Typhoon anyway.

So given that they have both the productive basis, the operational requisite and the market space to make of it a most probable success, why they did not be allowed to try it?
In case they would found convenient partnerships or experience technical difficulties they would be more than happy to eventually enlarge the numbers of partecipants, so why bother?
Better doing so than starting all together and lose pieces along the road like happened with EFA.

Certainly there is a problem of growing complexity and cost of the newest, post cold war planes, stealth ones above all, but not one is going to build planes now without a consistent degree of RCS reduction added.
The problem of a conflict with vastly inferior adversaries is however an issue but the solution is to keep on service if already you posses or otherwise acquire a quote of CAS/COIN planes not giving to other the possibility to acquire an operative superiority over you.

@garryA

Contrary to popular belief, the gap in maneuver between 4 generation, 4.5 generation and 5 generation is very narrow. AFAIK, even now, nothing has better sustain turn rate than a clean F-16 block 30 at sea level. Nothing has better instantaneous turn rate than a clean Su-27 at 50% fuel.If we consider acceleration then F-15 family is still at the top. Consider climb rate then it would be Mig-29.
http://forum.keypublishing.com/showt…t-in-the-world
That is not to say newer aircraft are not better, but their main strength over legacy fighter doesn’t come from STR or ITR

Let’s say that what you show there are spikes i.e. single points of excellence of each plane.
Certainly the same 4.5 term was chosen to show a lesser degree of distance between them and the 4gen than the precedent generations.
So the 4,5 gen (and we would previously agree what this term refers to) is to be considered more as a constant and progressive evolution along a previously given guideline than a radical change of the required performances like in the previous generation.
Still I wouldn’t call such difference, very narrow at all.

Look, sought performance were extremely different even between the pristine Teen Fighters and the MiG-29/ Su-27 (but also F/A-18): the first ones centered of STR, in order to gain a position of advantage in a dogfight using tail aspect IR missiles, while the others heading toward ITR and vertical manoeuvering so to achieve those “nose pointing” capabilities needed to optimize the tactical use of the all aspect, high boresigh, HMD driven missiles like R-73 .

Every successive model entered in service in all those decades tried to further enlarge the flight performance envelope in all directions, instead of optimize just one of them, so to get a much greater operative flexibility and having a way greater array of tactical options against different types of menace
For the rest also an extremely niche aircraft like the MiG-31 gave up something of its signature characteristic, high quote supersonic speed, when compared to its predecessor in order to achieve better performances at lower quotes so to being able to deal with surface skimming cruise missiles.

So if some of the greatest fighter producers in the world spent a lot of money along all those decades to put more advanced FBW system, canards and TVC exhausts on already excellent fighters rest assured that they do not do this for putting on better Airshow performances.

It can also be the case that the F-35 could end up having lesser STR than F-16, lesser noise pointing capability of a F/A-18 and lesser acceleration than F-15 but as long as the difference would be however contained, it would nail all of them with ease as long as it act in order to take advantage of their own respective weak points instead of limit itself into a single type of tactical approach.

+

The F35 flies better than most of the aircaft it replaces! That is progress of a sort.

Given that the most manoeuvrable of them entered service in 1978, a very slow sort of…
Certainly, comparing it to a Tornado or an A-10 (that would NOT be replaced by it atm ) would be a case of apples to watermelons, not just oranges.