The GaN is stated under the EW section, not Radar.
regarding radar, repositioner is a huge advantage but slightly biased when choosing “1000+” T/R modules, APG81 is bigger than the ES05Raven.
Conformal EW antennas sounds good and I’m curious about “flexible antenna pool.” I wonder what the GaN EW antennas can do??? Beaming datalinks & jam 4sure but range detection to support the MAWS?

Those frontal sections are indeed very interesting, what is the source? Do you or original source have any area measurements?

My understanding of the F35 aerodynamics so far,
-Area rule
?
-Drag/frontal area
poor due to internal load

-Wing Sweep
built for good lift capacity, range and sufficient wing area with limited wingspan but poor for transonic region

-Length/width of aircraft in order to stay out of Mach cone

-Wing Loading
poor

-External loads
excellent performance due to internal carriage of weapons and lots of internal fuel

-Thrust /weight
not to impressive but lots of internal fuel has to be considered, perhaps thrust to weight with a specific range target would be better for a fair comparison?
high bypass engine for best fuel economy but limits SC

-How does wing thickness influence?

Formally no problems but Fortunatly for our export “to little Islands angry dad”, US content will prevent that circus…

France share this low threat environment with Brazil so France could safely turn Rafale into reinventing the wheel type of tech demonstrator for the domestic industry. Many other buyers would consider bang for the buck. I’m quite fed up with “since you only do airpolicing gripen is ok”. I look forward to follow some of the other threads to see if we see some progress on Meteor integration, datalinks and MAWS.

@Gripen strong points, The wide angle swashplate AESA, beamed data links, 4(6?) passive now IR MAWS and 3 very, very significant advantages over its bigger brothers and SH. I’m sure there are many areas when it inferior too but in terms of Avionics, pls elaborate.

@hopsalot, most info in your post is well known and considered when I wrote my post. Good news about engine ir stealth but I dont understand the Jamming part. I thought F35 used its fixad x band AESA radar for jamming and Nothing else.

I agree that looking at scenarios where F-35 is facing 4. gen a.c. are probably the not most interesting ones.

However, the problem is; what are the alternative to F-35? Rafale? Typhoon?

IMHO: The most important parameters are

* sensors and sensor fusion
* “stealth” (low RCS, IR signature)
* Missiles and missile performance
* networking
* advanced EW capabilities

Other parameters like turn rates, acceleration, etc. are less important.

F-35 scores way above and beyond all 4.5 gen a.c in the above list, with the exception of missiles where the 4.5 gen a/c should be on the same level.

If I were to meet a bunch of PAK FAs I would much rather be in the latest version of F-35 than the latest Rafale, Typhoon or SH. Just sayin’.

Will “close turning fights” return? Well, I don’t think so. Perhaps “WVR fights” will return, if two VLO fighters having similar RCS and IR characteristics meet; however due to modern off-bore missiles my guess is that “close turning” will not return, instead the figher having a slight edge in sensors and sensor fusion and missile capabilities most likely will have the edge.

F-35 may not be the best fighter in all scenarios however it does not really help to use that argument to consider even weaker fighters….

The most important criteria is to be there at all, that is number of aircraft, availability, be able to get in the air, speed and range. Remember only the attacker determinates when and where to meet! Even if F35 is likely to have much better SA it still has fewer and worse missiles, no better IR signature (?), and lacks an internal jammer, again, this only applies if it gets up in the air at all…