I’m a fairly new member and maybe I’m out of line, but some of the Rafale fans on this board are the reason French people are sometimes perceived as arrogant. Jackjack is trying to clarify a point, and maybe its the language difference, but there is no need to tell him to stfu and stop polluting the Rafale thread. Maybe NickolASS should re-read the title of the thread!!!

A little courtesy people, please.

Just about every discussion on this board bogs down in definitions, and always including the usual suspects. From a discussion about pre and post stall maneuvering we are now discussing the definitions of AoI and AoA? Why not just call it the angle between wing plane and direction of travel? As for some of the other aerodynamics spouted by some members, I guess the old adage about a little knowledge being a dangerous thing, is still valid.
Now, I’m not disputing the fact that the Rafale is a great plane and it does some things better than Tyfoon and even some better than Raptor, but why is it everybody always wants to buy the other planes? Even at the exorbitant price of the Raptor, I know that Israel and Japan (and probably some others) would buy it without second thought, if they could. Tyfoon has made a few sales and Rafale had to be offered at a loss to Brasil but still hasn’t managed to lock-in the order yet. What do these customers know that we don’t?

Sorry if I was curt with my previous reply, H_K, I should have explained rather than snap. You are applying current operational doctrine to the different reality that was the 50s and 60s.
During that period of the cold war, the U.S. and certainly Germany which would be ground zero in any nuclear war, operated under the Mutual Assured Destruction doctrine. This calls for massive nuclear retaliation to any attack. There are only two types of aircraft needed for this scenario, one type to prevent the enemy from delivering their nuclear ordinance to your position ( a point defence interceptor ), and a second type to deliver a single special weapon ( that’s what nuclear was called in the 50s/60s ). Since the chance of intercepting their aircraft are slimmer and the hope is to prevent an attack in the first place with retaliation capability, you may as well have more delivery aircraft than interceptors. You’ll note that even the U.S. didn’t have any other types than interceptors and strikers until the 70s.
The F-104 fit the bill perfectly for smaller air forces, not so much for USAF which needed a long range interceptor ( quest for F-108 ) and long range delivery, read heavy and costly. For Germany and the other nations who bought the F-104, it provided a low level, stable and fast delivery vehicle as well as an excellent pint defence interceptor. Under their doctrine they had no need for a ‘dog-fighter’. The only aircraft, if any, that did the job as well were a lot heavier and thus more costly.
Up until 1968-1970 Germany was developing F-104 replacements which were optimised for low level delivery, such as VJ-101 C/D/E, VAK-191B ( see the size of those wings, makes F-104 look huge ), and other developements leading to MRCA. The shift from MAD to graduated response finally dawned on the U.S. about 1965 when they drafted the requiremnt that led to the F-15, after hard learned lessons in Vietnam. A few years later Germany and the rest of Europe followed suit.
The F-104, designed by Clarence Johnson to the operational requirements of the time was the smallest airframe possible which met all performance requirements, and as such was cost a effective solution for many air forces ( although not so much for U.S. who wanted longer range ), and the reason so many were sold.

The F-8 Crusader hard to land? There are several documented instances of the Crusader taking off and landing on a carrier with its wings in the folded position.
The thrust to weight ratios quoted for F-4, F-104 and Super Tiger are misleading because they use thrust at standard (sea level press and temp) conditions. as you gain height and speed, the more efficient multi shock intakes of the F-104 would give it a thrust advantage over the Super Tiger. Grumman was pleasantly surprised by the M2 capability of the two Super Tiger prototypes as they onlyexpected M1.4. See American Secret Projects: fighters and interceptors 1949 to 1975.
As far as I know, and I’ll admit it was a special stripped version, no other aircraft from that era, neither F-4, Lightning and certainly not the Super Tiger could zoom climb to 104,000ft like the F-104. That should imply something about its T/W ratio and its wing.

I remember reading in an aviation magazine or book ( i cannot remember which, damn middle age ) that there was a fly-off between the Super Tiger and the F-104. I don’t recall if the context was the German order or the U.S. order, maybe someone with readily accessible date/version information can tell us if the Super Tiger was a contemporary of the F-104G or F-104C.
What stood out was an account of a takeoff and climb-to-hight test in which the F-104 had already reached 60,000ft whereas the Super Tiger was still struggling to clear 30,000ft. Maybe the wing of the Super Tiger wasn’t as efficient as some think?
I have noticed that the latest volume of Secret Projects: U.S. fighters, shows numerous Grumman fighter designs of the 60s, all with rather large wings, but that were not selected for production. Either Grumman was designing for qualities tha the U.S. wasn’t interested in, maneuverability as opposed to ordinance delivery, or maybe Grumman didn’t have a good handle on wing design.

Well, since everyone else is giving their opinion, I’ll contribute my two cents. The difference between agility and maneuverability is solely based on definitions and nothing else, as they can both be used to describe the same qualities.
I’ll also contribute some thoughts on handling ability of aircraft. If we compare two aircraft with differing wing planforms but everything else equal, say a mirage 2000 and an early f-16, we can say a few things about the large delta wing. The spanwise lift decreases very rapidly with increasing span as result of the high taper ratio, this decreases the inertial moment with increasing span ( the same effect that causes an ice-skater’s rotation to speed up when their arms are drawn in, or their mass is brought closer to the CoG ) and rolling becomes much easier. The roll rate is important because it is the first part of a turn as the aircraft banks and then “climbs” into the turn. The large delta wing gives a large turning force and can even be aided by control surfaces at extremities ( canard foreplanes ).
While it’s in the turn, however, the large delta wing, being at a positive angle of incidence to the direction of travel, will act like a large airbrake and scrub off SEP and slow down the aircraft much more than a smaller swept wing.
The conclusions we can draw then ( generalising ), are that, everything else being equal, a delta will snap into a turn quicker due to its higher roll rate and larger control surfaces but if it has equivalent SEP, will not be able to sustain the rate of turn.
Further summary, large delta gives high instantaneous turn rate, or nose pointability to get its guns or missiles locked on an enemy, while smaller swept wings or extremely high SEP, give a high sustained turn rate with which it can avoid an enemy gun or break a missile lock.
These are all generalizations, of course, and there are many exceptions to these simple rules, but they are an indication of the trade-offs and optimisations that go into designing an aircraft to a specific requirement.

And another question. Does Britain still patrol all the Atlantic? I would have thought it was done during WW2 to protect shipping lanes, but currently they patrol only national waters and other commercial interests such as the North Sea where they have oil interests.

Mr. HAWK ace
How many American aircraft in production or under development have ‘Canard’ control surfaces? NONE !!!
According to your arguments this means that canard foeplanes are incompatible with flight !!! A rather silly conclusion, don’t you think?
Since the Americans are the only ones with ground-up designed stealth aircraft maybe the conclusion we should be drawing is that American design priorities are different, such as the Navy reqirement for a flat landing attitude which is more easily acheivable with tailed aircraft. Another point is that LM has produced 3/4 of the stealth designs for the Americans, the only other being NG B2, since by your criterea the Boeing x-32 and NG-McD YF-23 don’t count, and their chief designer Harry Hillacker ( of old GD-fort worth ) has often stated, in relation to canard placement, ” the only suitable place for canards is on someone else’s aircraft”
In case you hadn’t noticed ‘shape’ stealth is becoming increasingly irrelevant, as witnessed by the fact that aircraft are becoming more ‘normal’ looking with no affect to RCS ( compare Have Blue and f-117 to f-22 and f-35 or NG’s early whale shape , I forget the classified name, progressing to YF-23 and finally to B2. Any shape can be made compatible with stealth and I have no doubt canard stealth aircraft will be produced, maybe not by Americans, it all depends on optimization and tradeoffs the designer is willing to make to satisfy the mission requirement.