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Originally Posted by wasyoungonce
The newer hot engines are excellent performers and very reliable....but...the Airforce bigwigs vowed never to by another single engine fighter after the Mirage. Not that the Ata turbojet was that bad, the refinements had made if a very good engine but it did have its weaknesses.
Looks to be the people who knew this have moved on. I remember in first few moths of 3SQN F18 operations....during AA gunnery ...their first F18 taste as a SQN....they managed to shoot parts off the banner that were ingested. Bother engines were badly damage and shut down, one destroyed completely (the whole banner trail weight had been shot off and ingested). Needless to say...wow...good shooting! But, they would have lost 2 Airframes in that one week alone.......had it not been for the insurance of the 2nd engine.
Anyway...what done is done...its a good swarm aircraft but I am surprised by its lack of good range and lack of super-cruise. And it ain't stealth with external stores...well ...less so particularly armaments. Anyway FWIW....
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The F-35 just lacks everywhere.
The recent airshow offerings (mainly done to discredit further Pierre Sprey) have been found to have significantly lightened airframes (minimal fuel, no stores etc) and yet still exhibit an "awkward" AoA in level flight and trim angle of the tailplanes - a VERY dynamically unstable aeroplane that is potentially unflyable in the event of cyber attack/AI failure (and then the ejection could very will kill you, considering the ejection seats failings oft mentioned).
I just hope that the change of government (I don't think we can argue that one!) on May 18 means a change in Defence spending on white elephants. Even more countries have opted out of the F-35 now.