My guess is an YF-23-esque stealth fighter full scale mockup.

I had the same idea .

Cheers .

Belethor , about the DDM6NG , you said :

Still, by the souns of it its not really any sort of equivalent to EODAS as Big Blue claimed it was.

I ‘ve never said such thing . I said you have the EODAS , we have the DDM-NG .
I did NOT make any comparaison , I only reminded you of the French system .
Now , if you want me to make the comparaison , EODAS is of course a better system but heavier and far more expensive .
As MSphere said : “call it poor man’s EODAS if you want” .

The DDM-NG is DIRCM capable (like EODAS) and it ‘s good to me .
By 2018 , we ‘ll see what the Rafale will be and maybe we ‘ll see what the first opeartional F-35s will be capable of to start with . Then , we ‘ll see how it goes for the US jet within its first 3 or 4 years of service and how it fares at war if there is one to fight .
Then , we ‘ll know if it ‘s a good aircraft or not (by 2018-2020 at the earliest).

Cheers .

Moon light , who are you ? A young kid ? Someone uninformed ?
No bad intended , just asking .

it mean f-35 can be detected by radar at very close range , but at long range it undetected

It doesn ‘t say that at all . It says : “Stealth characteristics and sensor fusion will enable it to get in to a target relatively undetected” .
Nothing is said about distance or anything else for that matter .

secondly you see to forget about ability of all the meteor , Aim-132 , CUDA , DIRCM , AESA jamming .. etc on F-35 , kinematic is not all

I already talked about the BVR capabilities of the F-35 and if you have read what I wrote , you should know that I am well aware of them . I said :
“It ‘s gonna be harder to shoot a F-35 BVR than to shoot a F-22” .

Am I clear enough Moon_light ?

moreover F-35 carry much more fuel compared to rafale ( double i think ) to reach to same distance as F-35 with internal fuel , rafale need 3 bag

Internal fuel : 4.700 kgs for Rafale , 6.125 kgs for F-35B , 8.280 for F-35A and 8.860 for the F-35C .
Rafale needs 2 small supersonic 1.250 l. external fuel tanks to get more legs than the F-35 on internal fuel only . I know it and never said otherwise .
On the other hand , on a penetration mission , Rafale as almost twice the legs of the F-35 : 1000 nmi for the former and 584 nmi for the later .

Armée de l ‘Air report during Libya :

Transit to Libya is flown at 50% power setting , which translates to Mach 0.9 cruise speed even with six AASM bombs and two large underwing drop tanks .

(and 2 Mica IR) Try that with a F-35 and let me know , (on top of this , of course keep in mind the economical flight with regard to fuel consumption , 50% power setting) .

Cheers .

Is it me or some posts just went missing ? :confused: KIA ?

Anyway , it is now obvious that Hopsalot is not aware of the various times when Rafales and US aircraft flew together or against each other , being in war operations (obviously together) or in training .
There are many reports from both sides and a nice googling would bring a dozen links at least .
Hopsalot needs to check them but something is telling me that he has no desire at all to do so .
I think we should just let him play the idiot and smile .

Cheers .

I have just checked some thrust-to-weight ratio for 2 multirole fighters , the F-35 and the Rafale .

F-35 with full internal fuel : from 0.75 to 0.90 , depending on the version .
Rafale with full internal fuel and 4 Micas : 1.10 .

Now , add the aerodynamics into the equation and the gap is yet increasing in favor of the Rafale .
(When Rafale did beat Luke ‘s F-16 Blk25 6-2 , the Rafale had to be careful not to overshoot the Viper in dogfight , in full Mil power , it could turn inside the Viper in AB)
The Rafale is also an Interceptor (must replace the M2000-5) while the F-35 is not . The Typhoon is also a formidable Interceptor , it climbs like a home sick angel and fly real high real fast .

As a striker , a clean F-35 is short legged and its punch power is relative because of small internal carriage . It is going to be extremely expensive to fly and to hit numerous targets , one will need many trips . If you use it with external stores , I wish you good luck becaue you ‘re not gonna stay alive long . You can ‘t dictate the combat , you can ‘t accelerate , you can ‘t turn , you can ‘t flee unless to jettison everything and then , your dash speed is not going to save you … Ouch .

So , what ‘s the point of buying such an aircraft at an horrible price ?!
I don ‘t get it .

Cheers .

Just few points from Loke ‘s link :
Regarding transonic acceleration :

given the geometry of the airframe and available engine power, it was just simply not going to happen

Crystal clear : bad aerodynamics , underpowered . This is what I have been saying for years and I still get the stick from some F-35 fans . Go figure …

Tactics will emphasize stealth and sensor capabilities

Of course , it has to since it is a bad flyer . Anyway , I am confident that it has some good cards up its sleeve .

This is also important and should be noted :

Stealth characteristics and sensor fusion will enable it to get in to a target relatively undetected

Relatively . What should we understand ? Its RCS might not be as low as previously presented . Now , hang some decent weapons and a couple of external fuel tanks to give it good legs and good punch and you have an unstealthy slow brick .
How much they ask for that ? An arm a leg and a pair of balls .

Cheers .

If one could write down all the F-35 ‘s problems since day 1 , one could propose an Encyclopedia called : The 1001s mistakes one shouldn ‘t make when building a military aircraft .

Cheers .

Ok , I back pedal . Happy now ? 🙂

As an Interceptor , I would use the Typhoon rather than the F-35 . But that ‘s just me …

Cheers .