You mean I should take avertising at face value?
my friend, If the USAF is a credible source of information then as you say "USAF's own words":
The F-35A is the U.S. Air Force’s latest fifth-generation fighter. It will replace the U.S. Air Force’s aging fleet of F-16 Fighting Falcons and A-10 Thunderbolt II’s, which have been the primary fighter aircraft for more than 20 years, and bring with it an enhanced capability to survive in the advanced threat environment in which it was designed to operate. With its aerodynamic performance and advanced integrated avionics, the F-35A will provide next-generation stealth, enhanced situational awareness, and reduced vulnerability for the United States and allied nations.
Features
The conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) F-35A gives the U.S. Air Force and its allies the power to dominate the skies – anytime, anywhere. The F-35A is an agile, versatile, high-performance, 9g capable multirole fighter that combines stealth, sensor fusion and unprecedented situational awareness.
The F-35A’s advanced sensor package is designed to gather, fuse and distribute more information than any fighter in history, giving operators a decisive advantage over all adversaries. Its processing power, open architecture, sophisticated sensors, information fusion and flexible communication links make the F-35 an indispensable tool in future homeland defense, Joint and Coalition irregular warfare and major combat operations.
(Or as they say in France "
politique!")
the official USAF website FACT sheets:
The F-35A is the U.S. Air Force’s latest fifth-generation fighter. The F-35A will provide next-generation stealth, enhanced situational awareness, and reduced vulnerability for the United States and
www.af.mil
As I said, the F-35 is the best fighter in the world, it is better than the Rafale, but only on paper. In reality it's vapourware. Today, it is just a 4th gen jet with stealth. That still gives it an enourmous advantage because passive stealth is still a few more years away from being defeated. But mano-a-mano, the Rafale will lose against the F-35 9 out of 10 times 'cause of stealth, until radar tech catches up.
Block 3F basically combines passive stealth with more advanced avionics, so by default it's better. But a lot of its capabilities are still locked away. It's like a video game in alpha testing or a movie in pre-production.
Its interesting. its far more generous to the F-35 than I would have expected. The whole vapourware idea wears thin when we remember that for better or worse the F-35 has its own parameters and expectations. falling short of some of these expectations does not mean the F-35 falls short of other competitors as you point out. what happens when anything else is subjected to the same JSE "block 4 or death" levels of threats? we would find there are a lot of "vapourware" aircraft out there. Which is one of the things I suspect happens at a lot of these competitions. The presumptions about what takes place at these competitions is always funny to see. What if countries were getting actual current capability comparisons and the F-35 was still winning? its hard to imagine that after 20 years of woes the F-35 is getting the most scrutiny from the forces picking it. its the highest profile, its problems are not exactly hidden... The F-35 would be facing the most difficult hill to climb. Gripen E should be the easiest for various reasons and one of those being a lack of bad press.
With respect to India and the Rafale, I would think most Indian Rafale fans would come to understand that bad reputations gained in the media are not necessarily conducive to reality. I would think you would agree the bad reputation the Rafale has garnered is not accurate.
Some of this is silly. in your example of the F-35 still not being in "full rate production" its seemingly irrelevant when 150 aircraft are being produced in "low rate" production, but the Rafale is struggling to get to 36 aircraft produce per year. but on paper the F-35 is not in full rate production and and the Rafale is in Full production (despite issues)
Rafale has DEAD. When they say SEAD, they are merely integrating 2 new weapons on it. So it's the weapons that are being talked about, not the aircraft.
if they are not talking about the aircraft why did they specifically mention F4 and F5 separately?
strange that when F-35 hasn't integrated certain weapons its "vapourware' but when the Rafale has not integrated something, its just a matter of needing more time to unlock that future capability of course!
it all sounds very familiar... I've also noticed that when the F-35 is going to get something someday in general its met with great skepticism but when the Rafale is going to get something someday its already assumed that it has it already and instantly counts in its favor, even if the capability is years away.
So it's not your traditional SEAD with HARMs. These are next gen capabilties. People forget to advertise "next gen SEAD" here. The F-35 also needs the same.
The F-35 is a next gen Fighter that uses next genearrion capabilities that already does SEAD... remember its the Rafale playing "next generation" catch up here and the idea behind a something like an F-35 is that its stealth and sensor combination means using more conventional weapons as opposed to hypersonic silver bullets you will never have enough of. (The affordable, not yet invented anti-radar hypersonic missile is not vapourware of course)
You mean I should take avertising at face value?
are you the same fellow posting youtubes from MBDA about how great this concept missile is going to be because MBDA says so?
www.reuters.com
