Graznovia wrote:Edit: Virana's F-29 is worth a look if you want something intended to fulfill pretty much the same roles as the F-35, different in that it was done right and didn't cost more than Australia's economy.
Actually, I have yet to write up its development history. The program ran into just as many problems and the overall development funding was twice as much as that put into the F-35 so far. Which means it too was one of those "it's only going because it's too big to cancel" programs. $250 billion is a lot of money to just terminate a program.
The per-unit cost is lower because there's been more individual units produced. That's the case with the F-35; by the second production batch it'll be under $100 million, and the third around $75 million. Additionally, the flyaway cost on the F-29's page does not factor in development costs, again because so many units have been produced. The actual cost of producing it would be far lower because of that, but I export them for a static cost above their true production cost. This effect is generally termed economies of scale, where increased production numbers reduce the average production cost over time.
Graznovia wrote:I'm going to be frank.
And for that 20-30 million in savings you get an aircraft that is far less capable than F-22. Stealth is pretty much the only good thing about the F-35; it is in fact less maneuverable than the F-4 dating from the 60s and slower than the F-15 which it is slated to replace as bomb truck.
And don't forget that the stealth capabilities of F-35 aren't very spectacular especially from the side or rear, so against an OPFOR flight flying spread out and sharing target data the stealth advantage is greatly reduced. Also, the piss poor maneuverability of F-35 means that for all the relatively advanced avionics it is equipped with, it would ironically enough often be able to detect but not jink from an incoming missile, reliant on countermeasures to do the job. In air-to-air combat, you'd be relying on your stealth and avionics to detect at BVR, and engage with missiles your adversaries before they can even see you. Failing that, you're likely fucked if the adversary survives (not unlikely; missiles actually have pretty low kill rates in general) and closes in on you, because you neither have the maneuverability to challenge nor the speed to flee.
Actually, the performance envelope of the F-35 is almost exactly the same as the F/A-18 Hornet's, which is, in fact, very reasonable for a modern multirole fighter. Its avionics aren't just "relatively advanced", they're rather eons more advanced than anything ever used in a fighter jet before. Fighter pilots commonly say "if I can see a missile, I can outmaneuver it"; the problem is actually seeing the missile while both you and the missile are performing high-G maneuvers. The F-35 keeps its eyes on the missile and allows the pilot to keep track of it.
And when considering that its flight envelope is pretty much the same as the Hornet, its maneuverability is not as bad as you're making it seem. It can match up with most modern fighters and crosses the threshold using its avionics suite.
Missiles do have far smaller kill rates in general than they're advertised, but that could largely be attributed to the fact that most advanced modern missiles with the latest in seeker technology haven't been tested in an operational combat environment. In testing, many types of missiles—particularly short-range AAMs with imaging infrared seekers—have far higher kill rates than their predecessors. In terms of medium/long range missiles, the MBDA Meteor has a far smaller operational range than comparable long range missiles like the AMRAAM, but the Meteor's key advantage is that it massively expands the "killbox", so to speak.
Again, the latest and greatest has yet to be used outside of testing.
. I'm vote we accept, of course.
