er, swerve… what part of harrier engines would you consider “dead weight most of the time”?

the pegasus engine is a turbofan like any other, except for the nozzles that can orientate thrust in different directions than the usual “straight through”. That is also why the Harrier did work, in contrast to other types that were in development and never did it.. the Harrier carried no dead weight which gave it the efficiency level that was compatible with operational needs.

The F-35 uses brute power of its engine to overcome one part on penalty that comes with dead weight of the lift fan in flight… but it can only compensate one part (retaining energy to some point), but aerodynamically, the airframe still has to carry useless weight for most part of the mission.

What’s more, high thrust comes with high consumption too, which is why it is so short legged, considering the amount of fuel it carries. for comparison:

a rafale carries 4.5t of fuel internally, and can fly for about 2100km with it giving it about 460km/t of fuel range
the F-35B carries 8.3t of fuel internally, and can fly for about 1660km with it giving it about 260km/t of fuel range

the reason it gulps so much fuel is simple: high thrust needed to make it fly, and thrust comes from the mass of air and fuel burned, combined with the acceleration it’s been given, as you can’t accelerate indefinitely the product of your combustion (materials resistance limits), tyhe only way to go that high is to burn more

maybe cheney didn’t leave them much of a choice, no? 😉

well, the hook is for landing, and a pretty hard one… my quess is that if you’re in a situation to use it, you won’t do it with a 2.5tons explosive thingy underneath your belly… 😀

spud, there’s a slight difference in having an opinion and being paid to have one… for as long as sweetman isn’t paid by, say, boeing, to criticise the f-35, and expresses his own opinion, that opinion can be taken into consideration, especially if one takes into account his, decades long, experience on the subject.

to make it clear: I won’t believe any praise from an LM guy on the F-35, and I won’t believe any criticism from a boeing guy on the F-35, but I will take into consideration what someone independant from both sides may think, be it positive or negative

If MiG is seeing a bailout that’s a shame. The MiG-35 diverts money from the Flankers which are more valuable in the big picture. What unique role does the MiG-35 play?

it can be a quite correct point defence fighter, especially if equipped with modern avionics, a decent radar and carrying enough fuel to remain airborne for more than 15 minutes (joke inside, for those who take it too seriously 😀 ), and cheaper to operate than the big flanker.

Haven’t you evenr wondered why the US use F-16s while they could use the F-15 to do all what the F-16 does?

EELightning, just for correction, about 100 rafales have been delivered until now, which is half (or less) than the Typhoon… so, if one takes the 100000 vs 60000 figure, the rafale does quite well, especially considering its doing it for a good part in real war operations and from carrier (the typhon having been used for air policing basically – so yes, doing circles in the sky, more or less), except in lybia where it started being used in war.

Anyway, it still comes down to one thing: until now, rafale is ahead in multirole department, and both have potentail to evolve. what will make the difference will be the investment that will be decided to finance that evolution, and that’s one point in which the rafale has a real advantage: french government is comitted with it and will support its further development while for the typhoon, UK italy and spain had started looking for the F-35… it is for naval operations, but if they really buy some, they may have trouble finding a budgets to finance further typhoon developments, especially if they have to do with economical constarints which will, inevitable, put more and more presssure on military budgets and bring them to search for a most financially efficient force – meaning, with one single aircfraft type in service.

The F-35 claims to do everything, and it it might not be long before some politician finds the idea interesting, regardless whether it is accurate or not, and scrap the typhoon budget for good in those nations…

Now, it germany is left alone to finance potential upgrades, for how long will it accept do so?

now the aircraft are part of a “base equipment”, and the squadrons don’t have their “own” aircraft anymore. The logistics dept manages to give the required number of flyable aircraft for the day and squadrons have to do the job with what’s available to them at the moment… so, the same aircraft can be used by various squadrons on the same base, depending on their needs.

well, maybe they consider that it can bring them somthing more than what they already have… they asked the french to come back (according to the article), not the other way around… so they do have their reasons

obviously, what the aircraft did in lybia impressed them