IMHO, the ‘best’ fighter would be the one best fitting into Paretto’s rule – 20% effort creating 80% result. Basic MiG-29 is clearly below the 80%, F-22 is clearly waaay above the ideal 80% line. Something along the lines of Su-30, Rafale or Typhoon would indeed be the ‘best’ overall solution. Ergo, something that can be described as high-performance, but still affordable enough to be fielded in reasonable numbers.

I have always said that LM should have made Raptor 20% less capable and 80% cheaper. My 0.02..

It depends on the nature of the conflict. If there is a huge furball fight between large airforces with 100 v 100 air battles, kill ratios drop to 1:1 regardless of performance advantages. Multiple fronts also require large numbers. Cheap low performance fighters in large numbers become the better choice. But if I have to take out a small air force composed of high performance aircraft, then I want the best fighter that money can buy. Fights will be 4 v 4, and the better aircraft will prevail. I think in most likely scenerios that exist today, its better to buy the expensive high performance aircraft. Better yet, go with a high – low mix. Maybe the USAF should buy some Eurofighters for the “low” end fighters. :dev2:

Since its going to be used by three US services and exported, Phantom III came to mind right off. Its also stealthy, so the name Phantom makes even more sense than it did on its predecessors. Its better than Lightning II. That name should be saved for an exceptionally fast aircraft. The F-35 is not. It made much more sense on the F-22.
I would prefer to have an entirely new name. Its too confusing to reuse the same name over and over. Some day a US Navy F-35 is going to have a midair with a Greek F-4 and the resulting press reports are going to be a mess. :p

This would actually have placed the Soviet Union farther from US territory than it actually was/is. 😉

It is true the the US has caused a lot of problems by backing dictators against the Soviet Union, but I support the war. We see the results of terrorist bombings in Iraq all the time, but many forget are just not aware of the huge numbers of Kurds and other Iraqis killed by Saddam Hussain, and the MILLIONS killed by the wars that he started. Under Saddam, people may not have lived in fear of bombs going off next to them as much as they feared someone coming in the night to take them away. Death was a familiar thing under Saddam. 🙁 It may be bad there, but its better than it was.

Hope it will turn around and unite more Iraqi people to open their eyes and rise in resistance….

What is your latitude and longitude? Please be as exact as possible… :diablo:

It looks to me that the center of lift would be too far aft if it was a real aircraft.

If it is indeed the case that the ejection sequence depends on jettisoning the canopy, flying a sortie would be incredibly dumb. There’d be no way to bail out if needed,

Flying fighters is not nearly as dangerous as it was in the 1950’s. On any one training mission, the chances are remote that the pilot would need to eject. Anyone who flies on an airliner has no chance to eject, but we do it all the time anyway. And I suspect the problem would not impede actual jettison of the canopy if the pilot did need to eject.

The pilot should have flown his sortie while he waited for the ground crew to figure out what they wanted to do. Five hours? You would think that there must be an access panel to get at the problem part. Somehow I don’t think chopping up the canopy helps fix the latch.