No it isn’t, you’re confusing KPP of ATF with definition of Supercruise,
and so is @SpudmanWP

And your trying to parse two different quotes into what YOU believe to be true. The quote regarding the F-35 cruising at mach 1.2 on dry thrust is unambiguous. The ambiguity arises with how long the F-35 can maintain the speed, 150 miles is not very long which would suggest that aircraft cannot hold the speed for very long (10-12 minutes).

While you harp on with the “tiny bit of afterburner”, you disregard that is how every aircraft accelerates through the transonic. They punch the ‘burners to get over the transonic hump. The F-22 does this as well. The F-35 would be no different, accelerate through supersonic with afterburners, throttle back to mil thrust and cruise for 10-12 minutes marginally supersonic.

Is this supercruising? Based on claims of some other manufacturers, maybe. Based on the idea of sustained supersonic flight on dry thrust, not really. It is marginally supersonic and it is not sustained.

And none of this belongs in the Rafale thread….

This will be more survivable against modern ground based radars that are now able to detect so called LO aircrafts at very long ranges, not even talking about other anti stealth detection means.

Thank god Dassault didn’t fall into that LO Ponzi scheme, hey comrades?

http://theaviationist.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/nEUROn-2.jpg

Oh wait, maybe they think that LO is relevant for strike as well.

Which five? You listed six, seven if you count LWF as two.

And money and funding are pretty much the same thing. I have heard vocal JSF shills announcing loudly that they don’t care how much money it costs, but that is merely an admission that they don’t understand strategy (“matching resources to goals” being a big part of strategy) and that they are unqualified to talk about anything.

Which costs? Those associated with the development? The lifetime O&S costs? Acquisition costs?

If we look strictly at acquisition costs, for a nation to purchase the F-35 post 2018-20, those costs look pretty attractive in comparison to the deals signed for the Rafale, the failed Swiss Gripen tender, even the recent Super Hornet deal with Kuwait.

Granted, every deal is different and an apples to apples comparison is difficult, if not impossible considering the weapons, training, spares included. However, the shrill cries of “It’s unit cost is unaffordable!” seem fainter as of late, no?

Well let’s try to analyse a bit your list. We were talking about the F35 that for me is not only a stealth fighter. It is a fighter that sacrifice a lots of capabilities to be stealth. So from your list, which one are developing an aircraft that has as many constraint that th F 35? I don’t see a lot. The T50 is not sacrificing the basics for stealth. Then for the one that purchase the plane. How much from your list have the choice ? Not a lot. They purchased the F 35 not because it is good, not because it is late and so obsolet, not because it is expensive, but only because it is American that is the case for Canada, Turkey, Netherlands, Australia, Israel, South Korea, Japan, UK.

Weak arguments. Do tell, what capabilities were sacrificed for stealth? (we know the design compromises made, and they were by and large not driven by the VLO requirements) Your assessment based on the Pak-Fa is silly. There are two very different aircraft in different weight classes, with different missions. Lastly, the whole “buying the F-35 because they were forced by the U.S.” is just weak. Nations buy based on requirements, cost, offsets, strategic partnerships, and supply history (not in that order).

There are good reasons that the first two Rafale orders came from nations that have a history with Dassault products (not because they wanted to “please” France, the same is true of the F-35, Sukhoi, and on and on).

On a fighter parasitic drag slows you down the faster you go. Thats one of the reasons why a bigger fighter always has more drag@ higher speeds.

Ok about the f414g again. The only thing we have, is the afterburner effect 98k and thats why everyone think we know what engine it is (f414-400). f414in has a 6 stage engine and are probably an epe/ede variant THAT ONE also has 98kn afterburner.
Find me the spot where an updated engine spec. are…. because the only thing i ever saw was that 98kn wet. NEVER the dry thrust.

AAAND the thing is that Gripen demo crew has under many occation said that Gripen demo consumes less fuel which makes me think its an ede/epe engine.

Silliness, still the F414g is not the EPE or EDE engine, stop making things up.
See above post:

http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?116825-Saab-Gripen-amp-Gripen-NG-thread-3&p=2223606#post2223606

a heavy bombload is a light fighters penalty,
but from that pdf we see that Gripen E both has longer reach and fly faster than F-35 with A2A loadout,
in spite of lower fuel fraction, external stores, and whatnot.

Because we can conclude nothing from the above:
1. Do you know the combat radius for an F-35 on a hi-hi-hi intercept flight profile? No, we have 590 for strike mission, or 728 nmi for a surveillance mission flown at 5,000 to 25,000 feet (from the Norway briefing, would not vouch for it) So we don’t know if the Gripen E/F can fly further with an air to air load, as we don’t have it’s range with different profiles to compare. (P.S. a vague 2,200 nmi from the pdf. is not the same as a combat radius profile as I’m sure your smart enough to understand)
2. The Gripen E/F has not even flown out to the mach 1.67 that the F-35 was tested to. And again, you are assuming that mach 1.6 is the airframe limit. In fact, the requirements were for 700kts, the aircraft was tested to that plus the 10% over to ensure safety margins. When the Gripen E/F flies to over 700kts at various altitudes with a weapon load, then we will talk speed advantages.

How do we explain that unless we conclude drag from external weapons is less than drag from building a frame around them ?

Well, we could start with different engines with different bypass ratios, SFC. Airframe designs with different priorities, and drawbacks. But since your comparison is based on assumptions due to lack of data on both aircraft. We can’t make any conclusions.

If this means changing the engine next year, they will. There is also talks right now that volvo aero wants in on the engine. We also do not know what the true stats of the f414g it might have more punch then we know.

The F-414 has been around for over two decades, I think they know the true stats. I don’t think that having Volvo joining in for the engine tender would do anything but raise the price for production of the engine. GE has already offered the EPE and EDE engines for the Super Hornet, but as of now there they are not part of the Gripen E/F program.

I will give you a fun fact here
An non supercruising aircraft that tryes to do surveillance as fast as a gripen, will run out of fuel many times faster then a gripen, since gripen draws 120% less fuel per engine @ supercruise.

120% less fuel than what aircraft? There is a LOT of speculation in this statement. The Gripen NG demonstrator reached mach 1.2 on dry thrust. That tells you two things: 1. the aircraft needs to be in full mill power to “supercruise”, 2. range will still be severely impacted by flying on full mill and still in the high wave drag of the transsonic regime.

These are the values for the f404-400, pretty good.
military 0.853
afterburner 1.850
F-15 Pretty bad.
military 0.720
afterburner 2.500

An f-15 can burn its afterburner at full speed for 11 minutes Gripen NG will be on that value and probably more with internal fuel. Gripen engine 414 draws less then the 404, but to humor you, we take 404 numbers, and that tell us that 404 draws 35,14% less fuel at afterburner WITH ONE ENGINE then the f-15 engine. Then strip away one engine. That means less “fuelspace” and cfts and so on.

First off the F414 burns more fuel than the 404, second there is a lot more to consider than SFC when considering combat range.

Im not going in to aerodynamics, but gripen is smaller then most, and flatter then most, so you understand where im going. Even with full armament gripen doesn’t even come close to the TOTAL air resistance of the Eurofighter. And the eurofighter are really good at eurodynamics but much much bigger. And the bull**** about built in weapons do less drag. If the things you have, are aerodynamically built, It doesn’t, not by much, it is the Total size of air that the engine has to push aside that makes resistance (bus)(car).

There is so much wrong with the above:
1. You assume that because the Typhoon is “bigger” that you can eyeball factor the drag coefficient of both and assume that there is a large advantage for the Gripen (mind you that’s not to say that the Gripen doesn’t, it that your assumptions are based on faith alone)
2. External weapon drag is not bulls**t, many on this forum have demonstrated this with real examples again and again. Worse for your theory is that the smaller aircraft will be impacted to a greater degree by the extra drag and weight. Read: a Gripen carrying the same load as a Typhoon or Rafale will be impacted to a greater degree. And yes, the conformal weapons of the Typhoon are less draggy than hanging them off a pylon, period.

Here are some wingloading numbers for you. With the maxweight and new internal max fuel. This is without taking into account the extra 15% lift you get from the close-coupled delta canard config.

The close coupled canards increase lift at higher AoA, not overall.

The Gripen E/F will be an effective and relatively affordable fighter, there is no need to exaggerate or invent attributes for what should be a successful fighter aircraft.