66!

[Kodoss]

Hmm, what I miss in this threat is the Chengdu J-10B to compare it with, let me say, half modern planes...

What also is an important factor is the cost over the lifetime of your A/C.
For an example: if you buy a normal passenger jet (A320 or B737, doesn't matter which one) you pay 7-times the same amount for maintenance the next 30 years.

So for the military etat it's good to have one fighter with superp multirole ability with long life cells,cheap/fast production, low maintenance costs and good upgrade abilities.

The low/complicated production rate, the high maintenance costs/repairs and the low adaptivity to other roles killed the F-22.

The F-35 is set as a multirole A/C, but has also a low and complicated production rate. If you think the EU had to much fingers, the US is not an exception to that. For the reduction of mainenance cost it has only one engine, but that doesn't save your pilots (see starfighter in germany).

The Eurofighter ( also called Jäger-90 ) was initially designed as an interceptor plane. With the change of the cold war, also the role of it changed over the time.
From interceptor to multirole. Maintenance costs, long life cells also played it's part in the older getting Air fleets in europe. That all rised the price, through political nonsense.

Russia builds the best aerodynamical A/C without assisting computers in the world, there's no doubt about it. Also they have a building set system to adapt new parts for new variants. But the maintenance costs and the fuel costs are a pain in the A...

If someone has some good info about the Rafale, J-10 or others, please share them.

[TomcatViP]

Originally Posted by Kodoss

If someone has some good info about the Rafale, J-10 or others, please share them.

you can start there : http://rafale.freeforums.org/

[Madfish]

I agree with stern on this.

The F22 is the biggest joke ever. Anyone should see this. Stealth's only good if it works. And it doesn't.

On top of everything the future of modern military aviation is drones. Why would anyone sane in their heads invest into a multibillion ruin of something?

The EF is one of the few last generation jet's that are actually affordable and usable. Beyond that GET DRONES.

Aside from a few russian variants the EF is the only feasable jet fighter out there to buy. And the chinese and americans (f22, f35) don't export anyways. So why the weird debate?

EF, RU or drones. Simple as that.

Cheers.

[Sternjaeger II]

Yep, the annoying thing is that the Americans learned their lesson with the F-22 and didn't do the same mistake with the F-35: they got more countries involved and have been raising costs more and more. There already have been several scandals related to the JSF development,but as things are now the show must go on,even if the F-35's development has broken any development costs record and it's not even finished yet,they need to complete a machine that eventually will be too costly to operate for most countries involved in the project,and that will never generate any kind of profit because of its insane development costs..

[Kodoss]

The chinese sell 36 of their Chengdu J-10A to Pakistan, with the delivery 2012 or 2014-15 (depending on source).

Also they plan to aggressively market most likely J-10B, when development is complete.

But it looks like after 18 years of development, that their are still some bugs regarding the engine installation and their Copy-engine of the AL-31FN.

[Madfish]

True. But only Pakistan was offered the J10s. As far as I know that's the only sale the Chinese authorized.

Aside from it's bugs and issues, understandable for the new development, the J10A is definately no match for the EF though. It's thrust to weight ratio alone is that bad that it can't even go vertical, heck, you're lucky if it climbs at all, with it's normal configuration and a ttwr of only 0,68. Just to compare: the EF has a ttwr of 1,18, thus can go vertical and climb fast...

Add to that the performance of the amazing DASS system the Typhoon has; ECM, ESM, MAW sytems, integration with the helmet mounted display unit etc. and you don't want to sit in a J10A even if it looks like a clone of the EF.

The J10B will be interesting to see, after all it's a raptor clone. But then again - I don't believe that it's the weapon of the future and also I don't yet believe that the chinese are that advanced when it comes to the subsystems. Anyone can build a good looking plane but that doesn't say much about it's real efficiency. I'm not saying this to discredit the chinese, on the opposite, I'm rather scared of their drone mass production capabilities, but I don't see it as a logical choice.

I still believe the EF Typhoon is the last jet with a reasonable configuration to buy or maintain, aside from some russian variants and maybe the rafale b. Considering how far advanced drone technology, autonomous and remote controlled, already is I'd not buy any other modern plane aside from transport and tactical/surveilance. The F35 also has a number of issues, like low ttwr, low speed, low weapon load, low fuel capacity, low g limits - I'd seriously consider almost any drone superior in terms of performance - the rest is just dependant on subsystem performance.

[swiss]

Originally Posted by Madfish

I agree with stern on this.

The F22 is the biggest joke ever. Anyone should see this. Stealth's only good if it works. And it doesn't.

On top of everything the future of modern military aviation is drones. Why would anyone sane in their heads invest into a multibillion ruin of something?

The EF is one of the few last generation jet's that are actually affordable and usable. Beyond that GET DRONES.

Aside from a few russian variants the EF is the only feasable jet fighter out there to buy. And the chinese and americans (f22, f35) don't export anyways. So why the weird debate?

EF, RU or drones. Simple as that.

Cheers.

Drones?
I'm sure you heard about the virus which infected the US drone fleet.
So, unless you're fighting a 3rd world country this shouldn't be the weapon of choice. Way to risky if those things get hacked.

[Kupsised]

Originally Posted by swiss

Drones?
I'm sure you heard about the virus which infected the US drone fleet.
So, unless you're fighting a 3rd world country this shouldn't be the weapon of choice. Way to risky if those things get hacked.

That's not the only problem with drones either. From what I've heard from other sources, they are fine for surveillance and surgical strikes, but for air to air combat they are essentially useless due to the computing power and technology not being there to have 'self-aware' air-to-air combat dones flown by computers. I always find myself wondering how effective these would be anyway. As soon as the enemy figure out the algoythms used for manouvers etc. they can easily develop algorythms to counter them. It'd be like having an airforce where the pilots always pull the same manouver and you can predict, with some margin for error, exactly what that manouver will be, making them not very effective in a dogfight.

As far as piloted UCAV's are concerned the delay in the satelite connection between pilots of UCAV's and the feed from their aircraft, although it's small, is too big to fly them in air-to-air combat where decisions must be made in split-seconds and in real time.

Drones could certainly be a part of future warfare, for example they are perfect for level bombing missions, maybe even being able to move at speeds that manned aircraft can't because of human limitations, making them even more difficult to intercept. I think though that air-to-air combat, for the foreseeable future at least, is either up to manned aircraft or UCAV's flown by manned aircraft in the direct vicinity (for example, flown by the weapons officer of a Super Hornet or the like) to remove the issues with satelite delay.