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Elite 1K Joined: Aug 02, 2006 Posts: 1003 Status: Offline

I think this warrants its own thread because it seems to be the focus of so many side tracking in so many threads.

Why F-35? I think the answer can be summed up as follows:-

(1) The US armed services want 2400+ fighters (1700+ being USAF requirements) to replace the exisitng teens. They cannot afford 2000+ F-22s and they cannot make do with 800.

(2) The US armed services want CTOL, CV and STOVL jets for their varying needs. The F-35 offers all of these variants, the F-22 does not.

(3) The F-35 has the right combination of attributes to dominate the the overwhelming majority of current and anticipate A2A and A2G threats. For the small number of threats which it may not, we have a small number of F-22s to deal with them.

The answer to why the F-35 is being developed and procured really is that simple! Almost as simple is the answer to why the F-35 is designed as it currently is...

(4) Because when you want to take a step forward from the teens, there are really just a few ways you can go given current and near future technologies. You can build a Mach 1.7+ supercruiser with VLO and exceptional agility. Thats the F-22. We already have that. Unfortunately its too expensive to buy in the numbers needed. Short of that, you can do a somewhat lesser supercruiser and exceptionally agile aircraft without VLO. A somewhat not so fast example will be the Typhoon and slightly below that capability level a Rafale. This is not believed to be significantly more survivable in an A2A duel and definitely not in penetrative strike vs an evolved teen. The final direction you can take is to put VLO first while also specifying equal or better performance as the teens. This is the F-35. The US services belief that this is much more likely to win an A2A duel, and/or deliver ordnance on heavily defended targets, without getting shot down than the faster, more agile solution without VLO. As a near miracle of engineering, the LM people are able to take this developmental direction and incorporate a STOVL variant and make the aircraft so light that it has much more fuel, carry internal weapons, have equal or better performance while being lighter than a Super Hornet. That really is the achievement.

My additional (personal) opinion is that ultimately, the USAF will not buy 1750 F-35s. Instead, they will buy about 1200. The remaining funds will be used to keep buying 12~24 Raptors a year indefinitely. This does three things. Firstly, it keeps the F-22 line open indefinitely. If we ever need to buy more Raptors in the future it'll be available. If as we expected, the F-35 is more than enough for A2A superiority and an superior striker, it creates a more balanced force with ultimately about ~360 Raptors and ~1200 F-35s. Lastly, it allows for a newer evolution of the Raptor to be introduced without unrealistically enormous cost -- an F-22C if you will. This can happen and it usually does about 10 years into an aircraft's service career.

I think that about sums it up. You don't have to agree with these statements of course. Please feel free to opine.

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LOL I thought this thread would be about why they chose the F-35 designation, as in Why Not F-24??? Smile

dwightlooi I think you should read the stuff I highlighted in BOLD in the other thread. Because your basing all your opinions on wrong perfomance estimations.

F-35 is here to replace older aircraft and in every new generations fewer are purchased. if the order goes down to 1000 your not going to be lacking anything.

Enthusiast Joined: Sep 07, 2006 Posts: 30 Status: Offline

habu2 wrote:

LOL I thought this thread would be about why they chose the F-35 designation, as in Why Not F-24??? Smile

There is a pretty good explanation here:
http://www.designation-systems.net/usmi ... l#_MDS_F35

-- Shaken - out --

F-16.net Editor Joined: Sep 23, 2003 Posts: 2862

JSF has all the potential for a successful career if we would stop screwing with the program and just fund the initial production schedule. Cool

We need to stop downsizing the USAF. DC needs to stop "target fixating on Iraq/Afghanistan"( T Michaels term that I like) requirements. There is no Team America: World Police if we are not ready ....... ready as in "unit readiness" ....to stamp down two major conflicts with air power at the same time.... and fight GWOT... and still have home defense intercept ability. Based on that, there is no justification to do downsizing in the middle of a GD war.

Nice summary DL. I do admit, as with the Rhijno I was once a F-35 detractor but when I started to really put hings ion perspective I came to appreciatethe system.

The one point you neglected to mention which I think is very important is to give the US the ability to continue to dominate the fighter export market. Without JSF, what woudl we sell in 15 years?

As you pointed out in another thread, defence spending even with operations in SE ASIA and the ME account for less than 4% GDP. We no longer sell a 30 year bond because the budget is under control. We can very easily afford to spend a bit more on defence. Contrary to conventional wisdom other than the Iraq war the Democrats seem to be very receptive to defence spending and there seems to be a greater appreciation that we have let things slip for far too long. I happen to agree with you that the AF will get more Raptors. In fact it would not surprise me if they wind up with 350 -360 AC. Unless the Navy decides to skip JSF and have UCAVs supplement the Rhinos I believe the US JSF buy will remain at around 2300.

Elite 1K Joined: Aug 01, 2006 Posts: 1003 Status: Offline

Thumper3181 wrote:

Nice summary DL. I do admit, as with the Rhijno I was once a F-35 detractor but when I started to really put hings ion perspective I came to appreciatethe system.

The one point you neglected to mention which I think is very important is to give the US the ability to continue to dominate the fighter export market. Without JSF, what woudl we sell in 15 years?

As you pointed out in another thread, defence spending even with operations in SE ASIA and the ME account for less than 4% GDP. We no longer sell a 30 year bond because the budget is under control. We can very easily afford to spend a bit more on defence. Contrary to conventional wisdom other than the Iraq war the Democrats seem to be very receptive to defence spending and there seems to be a greater appreciation that we have let things slip for far too long. I happen to agree with you that the AF will get more Raptors. In fact it would not surprise me if they wind up with 350 -360 AC. Unless the Navy decides to skip JSF and have UCAVs supplement the Rhinos I believe the US JSF buy will remain at around 2300.

Well, blame it on the overwhelmingly liberal media in the US, blame it on popular misconception or blame it on whatever. But it is a fact that when a Republican Administration or Congress spends on defense its seen as being "Evil Republicans in cahoots with the defense industry and Halliburton". But when a Democratic congress or administration does it, its being "responsible on national security and industrial base". It is also true of the hawks and dove perception. Remember, it was a democrat who got us into Korea (H S Truman), it was a democrat who got us into Vietnam (LBJ and to a lesser degree JFK). And it was a republican who "cut and run" from Vietnam (R Nixon). but Republicans are always seens as the evil hawks.

But, in anycase, as much as I detest the policy positions of the Democratic Congress -- time table on Iraq, push for socialist national health care, etc -- they are not defense cutters by any standard. The first thing they did was say we need to build more ships and keep Bath, Ingalls and New Port News open for Man-o-war construction and prevent going down to two yards "at any cost".

Enthusiast Joined: Mar 13, 2007 Posts: 98 Status: Offline

Thumper3181 wrote:

The one point you neglected to mention which I think is very important is to give the US the ability to continue to dominate the fighter export market. Without JSF, what woudl we sell in 15 years?

So now the US military is a cash cow for those lucky few Execs/VPs at the defense contractors. Listen to me, the military, our military, its whole purpose for exisiting is to PROTECT the USoA from foreign threats. The US military is not meant to be a "welfare" system in which defense contractors suckle off the US citizens wallets.

This program is an absolute joke: some dumd idiot is going to pull up FRONTAL outlines of other aircraft and claim, "Oh my god the JSF is a miracle of aircrafts design because it swallows up 2x 2K pounders... Oh wow!"
Anyone remember the F-106 and its (look it up yourselves) internal aam layout, along with over 2000 gallons of internal fuel: 50 years ago my friends. If that plane had todays PW in it, it would stomp all over your F-35 all day long not taking into account LO. What an absolute joke... You guys think you just invented the wheel and its been around longer than most of guys been alive.

But back to the target: the US SHOULD not be in the business of making a profit off of the worlds military spending. Now if lockmart wants to go out and design an airplane for the rest of the world, they should have the freedom to do so as we live in a free Republic (though I have to wonder at times). Our government has enough blood on its hands to go out and help lockmart make some more blood money.

So now we're turning the US Military I.C. into a cash cow. Once you get off target of what it is you're supposed to be doing, then what you're supposed to be doing goes to hell in a hand basket; and I believe thats whats happening now: 183 F-22's, a bunch of new underachieving "fighters", ship building slowing to a trickle, lawyers in the field w/our good young men looking to prosecute them if they dare make a mistake and kill someone who lays down his gun, that just a minute ago wsas trying to kill our boys.

Quote:

The US military is not meant to be a "welfare" system in which defense contractors suckle off the US citizens wallets.

I see economics escapes you. It has nothing to do with cash cows for VPs and everything to do with me, taxpayer. Did you ever wonder why F-16s where so cheap? See there is this thing in economics called economies of scale. In effect it says that the more widgets you make the cheaper the unit cost per widget becomes.

Second, contrary to popular belief, exports are still very important to this country's economy. Aviation and high tech account for a lot of jobs.

Third, I never said that it was the be all and end all reason for the JSF. Repeating the good job DL di with it seemed pointless, but just in case I will sum it all up for you.

At the end of the day JSF can do just about any tacair job short of CAS and aerial refueling better than any legacy AC built or being built. This includes A2A and frankly from what I have read, heard and seen, stealth is just icing on the cake for it. Not only will it do all of these things but it will do it at prices comparable to a new build upgraded F-16.

You may not believe any of it but so far there has not been one shred of credible evidence posted, published or spoken that contradicts this.

Elite 3K Joined: May 10, 2004 Posts: 3098 Status: Offline

fox100 wrote:

Thumper3181 wrote:

The one point you neglected to mention which I think is very important is to give the US the ability to continue to dominate the fighter export market. Without JSF, what woudl we sell in 15 years?

So now the US military is a cash cow for those lucky few Execs/VPs at the defense contractors. Listen to me, the military, our military, its whole purpose for exisiting is to PROTECT the USoA from foreign threats. The US military is not meant to be a "welfare" system in which defense contractors suckle off the US citizens wallets.

This program is an absolute joke: some dumd idiot is going to pull up FRONTAL outlines of other aircraft and claim, "Oh my god the JSF is a miracle of aircrafts design because it swallows up 2x 2K pounders... Oh wow!"
Anyone remember the F-106 and its (look it up yourselves) internal aam layout, along with over 2000 gallons of internal fuel: 50 years ago my friends. If that plane had todays PW in it, it would stomp all over your F-35 all day long not taking into account LO. What an absolute joke... You guys think you just invented the wheel and its been around longer than most of guys been alive.

But back to the target: the US SHOULD not be in the business of making a profit off of the worlds military spending. Now if lockmart wants to go out and design an airplane for the rest of the world, they should have the freedom to do so as we live in a free Republic (though I have to wonder at times). Our government has enough blood on its hands to go out and help lockmart make some more blood money.

So now we're turning the US Military I.C. into a cash cow. Once you get off target of what it is you're supposed to be doing, then what you're supposed to be doing goes to hell in a hand basket; and I believe thats whats happening now: 183 F-22's, a bunch of new underachieving "fighters", ship building slowing to a trickle, lawyers in the field w/our good young men looking to prosecute them if they dare make a mistake and kill someone who lays down his gun, that just a minute ago wsas trying to kill our boys.

I disagree.

F-106 was an interceptor. Nowhere near the maneuverability, LO, situational awareness of the F-35. Never did air to mud. Never did VSTOL or carrier ops. Still a neat jet Wink

. Great hard burner lights, Smile

. And NUCULAR AIR TO AIR ROCKETS - YEAH, BABY Thumb

! No sarcasm there - I really do like the F-106 Cool

.

You choose to see it as the U.S. making a profit on blood money. OK, let's look at it that way for a moment. I'd rather we profit than our enemies such as China.

I see it a whole different way. I see it as ensuring that our allies have the best equipment possible for putting warheads on foreheads.

I would ask that if we are discussing aircraft, we keep to the merits or troubles of that aircraft. Please take a deep breath, calm down, think about three times before hitting "Submit," and leave the politics of who's blood is on whose hands for another site. We may discuss weapons and sometimes tactics, but we try to stay out of the politics (kinda like soldiers) around here Wink

.

Enthusiast Joined: Mar 13, 2007 Posts: 98 Status: Offline

parrothead wrote:

I disagree.

F-106 was an interceptor. Nowhere near the maneuverability, LO, situational awareness of the F-35. Never did air to mud. Never did VSTOL or carrier ops. Still a neat jet Wink

. Great hard burner lights, Smile

. And NUCULAR AIR TO AIR ROCKETS - YEAH, BABY Thumb

! No sarcasm there - I really do like the F-106 Cool

.

You choose to see it as the U.S. making a profit on blood money. OK, let's look at it that way for a moment. I'd rather we profit than our enemies such as China.

I see it a whole different way. I see it as ensuring that our allies have the best equipment possible for putting warheads on foreheads.

I would ask that if we are discussing aircraft, we keep to the merits or troubles of that aircraft. Please take a deep breath, calm down, think about three times before hitting "Submit," and leave the politics of who's blood is on whose hands for another site. We may discuss weapons and sometimes tactics, but we try to stay out of the politics (kinda like soldiers) around here Wink

.

If we TRULY want to outfit our friendlies with the best equipment possible then we'd be ramping up F-22 production, of course minus some certain goodies we don't want some guy in Austria to sell to the Ruskies.

Economics does not escape me (I work daily with it in my consulting gig) and imagine if we were shipping off F-22X's to our friendlies... We'd drop the price down to the level where we don't need an underachiever on the ramps and have enough $ to go around and fill our lines with F-22A's and FB-22's. A mod'd F-22 would stomp the F-35 all day long in the mud moving sorties; can't carry the 2k pounders internally but as Lenin said, "Quantity is a quality all its own." Needless to say with the 22's speed, range, sortie rate as a by-product of cruise speed you'd have your cake and eat it to. Not to mention that in non-LO required missions that the 22 can lug more pounds to the target of the moment.

Of course that leaves the Navy w/o a LO bird on the carriers decks but thats where George Jetson's UCAV's come into play and all would not be lost.

See the problem is everyone is so god damned myopic and can't see outside of their own little window of what 'they' need rather than what the Nation requires as a whole.

We screwed the pooch on the ATF by leaving the Navy out of the game... Would have been a cake walk to whip up a plane that met the USAF's needs and had the low speed handling stuff required for carrier landings. Building fighters regardless of what people claim does not require the brain power of Stephen Hawking. There are so very very many past experiences and patents that a lot of what would have been needed is already (nearly) off the shelf.

Of course the F-106 was not a mud mover, BUT.... BUT in the fabulous 50's there were no GPS guided munitions and that airframe with today's materials, electronics, engines would be an even better interceptor and have long legs when her weapons bays were filled with 1K, 2K, and 0.125k pounders... not to mention glide bombs, and miniturized cruise missiles. Today's airpower fighting abilitiy lies more in the weapon than in the airframe; except when you're twisiting spagetti contrails with some Sukhoi that's spotted you.

Throw on a semi-conventional tail, or canards, along with a vectoring nozzel and you'd have good low speed handling required for carriers... I really see no need for the USMC (no offense my friends) to have a LO/VTOL beast...
The Marines are more concerned with defending their brothers who have boots on the ground then they are about penetrating deep into enemy turf... That mission is for the USAF/USN. And, NO, I am not saying the F-106 was the end all and be all of airplanes... That would be idiotic.

We've thrown away supercruise, and thrust vectoring, post stall turning, in return for a fancy dancy cockpit and sensor suite which can be outfitted on even my 68 Corvette. Makes no sense to me.

Today's warfare should be based on getting in and out FAST, reloading, and hitting the next target, QUICKLY... Goes back to Boyd's doctrine. With the 35 you're going in slow and can't react as quickly to "pop up" targets as you could with a supercrusing airframe.

We learned a long time ago that speed is life; why go back to performance levels of the 70's when you can do the new stuff pioneered on the ATF?

Seems like everyone is so focused on LO that they are care not for speed (and speed and LO are not one or the other choices anymore)... Might as well build a bunch of super super LO slow blimps with big bombs since that's what it appears the DoD wants.

I'm sure that at least we're getting a decent mud mover with the 35 (with a pin prick load for LO missions), but with nothing else learned and achieved in the last 20+ years as far as FIGHTERS are concerned.

Quote:

Economics does not escape me (I work daily with it in my consulting gig) and imagine if we were shipping off F-22X's to our friendlies..

I liked you better when you where Fox117 and an ex fighter pilot with "connections" in the airforce. Your ramblings at least had some sense of logic. Yeah imagine F-22s being exported. Regardless of how many you make and sell it will still be 2 to 3 times more expensive than the same size batch of F-35s.

We did this high low thing once or twice before with F-16/F-15 and F-14/F-18. It works. F-22s will eventually be exported but they are not affordable on the scale that the F-35 is.

Quote:

Would have been a cake walk to whip up a plane that met the USAF's needs and had the low speed handling stuff required for carrier landings. Building fighters regardless of what people claim does not require the brain power of Stephen Hawking. There are so very very many past experiences and patents that a lot of what would have been needed is already (nearly) off the shelf.

You should design a fighter in your next consulting "gig". You must know something that has eluded literally thousands of aerospace engineers and project managers. You would make a fortune. Lets see, break out the jigs for the F-106, combine it with the avionics of the F-15 of 1980, and hang a tail-hook off it. There you go a true multi role fighter that is carrier capable.

The AF and Navy have such different needs that the only two truly successful designs for both where the F-4 and A-7. They both happened to start out as Navy birds. You see there is a bit more to it than just low speed handling. Something about controlled crashes. catapult launches, and exposure to a maritime environment tend to make Navy jets just a bit more difficult to successfully produce.

Quote:

Seems like everyone is so focused on LO that they are care not for speed

Ever hear about the B-70 or SR-71? You cannot outrun a missile.

Enthusiast Joined: Mar 13, 2007 Posts: 98 Status: Offline

Thumper3181 wrote:

Quote:

Economics does not escape me (I work daily with it in my consulting gig) and imagine if we were shipping off F-22X's to our friendlies..

I liked you better when you where Fox117 and an ex fighter pilot with "connections" in the airforce. Your ramblings at least had some sense of logic. Yeah imagine F-22s being exported. Regardless of how many you make and sell it will still be 2 to 3 times more expensive than the same size batch of F-35s.

We did this high low thing once or twice before with F-16/F-15 and F-14/F-18. It works. F-22s will eventually be exported but they are not affordable on the scale that the F-35 is.

Quote:

Would have been a cake walk to whip up a plane that met the USAF's needs and had the low speed handling stuff required for carrier landings. Building fighters regardless of what people claim does not require the brain power of Stephen Hawking. There are so very very many past experiences and patents that a lot of what would have been needed is already (nearly) off the shelf.

You should design a fighter in your next consulting "gig". You must know something that has eluded literally thousands of aerospace engineers and project managers. You would make a fortune. Lets see, break out the jigs for the F-106, combine it with the avionics of the F-15 of 1980, and hang a tail-hook off it. There you go a true multi role fighter that is carrier capable.

The AF and Navy have such different needs that the only two truly successful designs for both where the F-4 and A-7. They both happened to start out as Navy birds. You see there is a bit more to it than just low speed handling. Something about controlled crashes. catapult launches, and exposure to a maritime environment tend to make Navy jets just a bit more difficult to successfully produce.

Quote:

Seems like everyone is so focused on LO that they are care not for speed

Ever hear about the B-70 or SR-71? You cannot outrun a missile.

Ok, so you want to be rude. We (most of us here) are fellow Americans and brothers in arms at one time or another.

If you had 1/137 of an understanding of what I was talking about was that guy, dont remember his name ad dont care to, who pulls up frontal profiles of airplanes and says, "Golly gee whiz... What a marvel of packagaging." Look at the frontal profile of the F-106, and remember 2000+ gallons of internal fuel plus a full complement of aams. That was over 50 years ago.
Internal weapons in a single engined fighter are nothing new my friend; in those days it was done with slide rulers and using that grey matter between your ears which so many of the younger guys are letting turn into mush.

Things I have worked on (non gov/military) for your FYI:

1) Brane theory of gravitation
2) Quantizing gravity
3) Electron spin/photon-coupling in strong electric fields
4) Quantum cosmology (which ties in whith iten #1)
5) A lot of automotive tech
6) Some bio stuff with calcium flow in living cells

I am just a fellow American who actualy gives a damn about my nation.

With the F-35, the emporer has no clothes and it doesn't take a genius to recognize what is happening to my beloved USAF and USoA.

Of course no one out runs a missile with a SR/XB-70. But do you know of something called an escape envelope which is a neet little equation of speed, RCS, altitiude, radar doing the looking, missile speed/range/accelleration... Not too mention some VERY nifty countermeasures that cannot even be spoken of lest someone(s) going to come knocking on your door. You're purely looking at white world, speed, altitude, no countermeasures, and missile speed/range/alt.

Ok, lets go build those super LO blimbs with glow in the dark skins so they can fly overhead at 80K and dromp bombs without anyone seeing 'em.

I swear to god, stealth (em) is no more than a few key strokes away on some guys computer and then the jig is up and you going to have a lot of slow moving, not good at turning aircraft on your flight lines.

Look, for EVERY attribute you cvan throw onto an airplane, there is a counter to it.... Like you said, missiles and blackbirds. So WHY EVEN get out of bed in the morning. Let's close down Lockmart and NG and Boeing since no matter whatever they build there is something which counters it - that's your line of thinking.

Who lives by the sword, shall die by the sword. Same is true, couldn't be more true, than with this stealthy F-35 we're building that takes advantage in nothing learned from the ATF program except for maybe materials and manufacturing technology (i.e. with the composities).

Fox100 wrote:

Ok, so you want to be rude. We (most of us here) are fellow Americans and brothers in arms at one time or another.

I know Thumper can be rude and ignorant at times, but I have to admit he has a valid point here. Hi/Lo mixes work, its a tried and tested method and I think it will work great with the F-22 and F-35.

Put it this way, say the US decides to cancel the F-35 program, and just have an air force of F-22's. The air force is going to have far fewer aircraft, seeing as the F-22 costs around 2-3 times more than the F-35. Now although you have an air force with the best quality aircraft, the projection capabilities of that air force suffers because of the lower QUANTITY of aircraft. The F-35 packs all the same (if not better as they are newer) avionics and warfare systems as the F-22. It is also LO, carries weapons internally, has excellent range and payload size. Also the F-35 can land on an aircraft carrier deck and provides a STOVL replacement.

Another way to look at it is with an analogy, say you have to occupy an area of 5 villages. Your occupation force needs to respond to any rebellions if they occur in these villages. You can have a force of 2 mighty MBT's that will deal with anything, but what happens if violence arises in 3 villages, you havn't got the projection capability to deal with it. Now say you could have 6 (not as well armoured) APC's instead of 2 MBT's, you can cover all the villages but also run the risk of being defeated in a particular village if the enemy has heavy weapons. Now what about having a force of 1 MBT and 3 APC's, most of the villages are covered increasing your projection capability and if a particular village poses a Strong enemy force you have an MBT to deal with it - a hi/lo mix.

So there is a balance here between aircraft quality and projection capability. However the F-35 is not a huge trade off, its a very advanced single engine stealth fighter - don't knock it until its served.

Elite 1K Joined: Aug 01, 2006 Posts: 1003 Status: Offline

fox100 wrote:

I swear to god, stealth (em) is no more than a few key strokes away on some guys computer and then the jig is up and you going to have a lot of slow moving, not good at turning aircraft on your flight lines.

I think that you are very mistaken.

(1) Who says the F-35 is slow? Compared to the F-22 perhaps it is slower, but compared to an F-16, F-18, Rafale, Typhoon, Gripen, SU-27/30, MIG-29, etc. it is certainly no slower. In fact, with operational stores it is likely to be a tad bit faster because most mission can be flown with all stores carried internally and the aircraft has lots of fuel and hence lots of afterburner time. The F-35's thrust to weight ratio @ 50% fuel for instance is 1.15:1 vs 1.11:1 SU-30MK. On dry thrust, it is even better 0.75:1 (F-35A) vs 0.68:1 (SU-30MK). This means that it will have generally better performance except in maximum speed which is more an inlet issue than anything else -- the same can be said of say a Rafale vs an SU-27/30 for instance, better performance all round until you nudge on Mach 2 when the Rafale's fixed intakes becomes an issue.

(2) Who says the F-35 is not good at turning? The JSF is designed to meet or exceed F-16 maneuverability levels. That is not poor turning.

(3) Who says the F-35 is heavy? A 12.7 ton aircraft with 43,000 lbs of thrust, capable of swallowing 5600 lbs of internal ordnance and 8.39 tons of internal fuel is exceedingly light. For comparison, a Super Hornet is almost 1 ton heavier, has almost 2 tons less internal fuel, no internal weapon bays and has practically the same installed power.

(3) Is it as fast or as maneuverable or as light as it could have been if the design has put these ahead of stealth as priorities? Probably not, but prioritizing that would have made it a lot less survivable or effective as a fighter. Besides, how much faster or how much more agile or how much lighter could it have been? As fast as a Typhoon or as agile as one as "light" as one? That's only marginally faster, a little more agile and actually "heavier" for the amount of fuel (a tad over half as much) and weapon accommodations it carries. If you think that is a winning recipe buy a Typhoon!

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