When F-35 becomes a known quantity then we will know....

With the cost climb in F-35, it is becoming a silver bullet fighter. After a big IADS is beat down, (USAF) doesn't need an F-35. It also doesn't need to over-invest in a lot of short range fighters, beyond home defense and some AEF needs. The AEF thing gets more interesting as we are having less foreign bases to fly from, not more. USAF, with it's limited funds, needs to invest in more long range platforms, not a bunch of short range, gold plated fuel guzzling/tanker dependent spuds.

Oh well. The problem is going to solve itself with USAF imploding because it's current "strategy" is to survive till the next annual budget.

[quote="sferrin
What's that suppose to demonstrate? That you're retarded? That shot's only been dissected about 900 times as being the proverbial Golden BB and rules had to be broken to even get it.

That shot's a can of worms. If there are no other pics like that then it only means one thing: the Rhino pilot got a little too close to the Raptor and probably got a good chewing when he landed.

Um, as for the F-35 being short ranged it has a higher fuel fraction than the F-22 and a more efficient, higher BPR engine. It will likely have MORE range than F-22 and nearly the same weapons load internally(it's weapons bay is actually larger and easily fits 6 MRMs vs the 6MRMs and 2 SRMs of the F-22) as well has having stealth that, while not on par with the F-22, is several orders of magnitude better than its potential foes. And for sensors...The CURRENT F-22 lags BEHIND the CURRENT F-35 in every way except radar antenna size(and thus number of aperatures/power/range) F-22 does not have integrated IRIST or 360deg IR scanning. The Lightning has a SINGLE tactical display in the cockpit and no HUD, because that is all it needs. It took lessons learned from previous programs (i.e. F-22) and USED them as a basis for improvement. It is said to have instantaneous and sustained turn rates comperable to the Viper (not bad) but one look at the size of the tailplanes makes me think that like the Su-27 and Super Hornet it can produce enough tail down force to exceed its AOA limits. The only question there is whether it is programed like the F-16 ( Nope, you cannot exceed those limits I dont care why you are asking), the Su-27 (You need to exceed those limits? Okay I guess, but you better pull pretty hard) or the F/A-18E (Limits... lets see.... limits... Oh yeah I remember those. Nah, do whatever you want to. In fact, I'll help you do it)

Um, as for the F-35 being short ranged it has a higher fuel fraction than the F-22 and a more efficient, higher BPR engine. It will likely have MORE range than F-22 and nearly the same weapons load internally(it's weapons bay is actually larger and easily fits 6 MRMs vs the 6MRMs and 2 SRMs of the F-22) as well has having stealth that, while not on par with the F-22, is several orders of magnitude better than its potential foes. And for sensors...The CURRENT F-22 lags BEHIND the CURRENT F-35 in every way except radar antenna size(and thus number of aperatures/power/range) F-22 does not have integrated IRIST or 360deg IR scanning. The Lightning has a SINGLE tactical display in the cockpit and no HUD, because that is all it needs. It took lessons learned from previous programs (i.e. F-22) and USED them as a basis for improvement. It is said to have instantaneous and sustained turn rates comperable to the Viper (not bad) but one look at the size of the tailplanes makes me think that like the Su-27 and Super Hornet it can produce enough tail down force to exceed its AOA limits. The only question there is whether it is programed like the F-16 ( Nope, you cannot exceed those limits I dont care why you are asking), the Su-27 (You need to exceed those limits? Okay I guess, but you better pull pretty hard) or the F/A-18E (Limits... lets see.... limits... Oh yeah I remember those. Nah, do whatever you want to. In fact, I'll help you do it)

+ dont forget the PAK-FA. F-22 will stay king of the hill, but PAK-FA can be quite close to F-35 especially in A2A - we can expect that it will be something like Su-30MKx with STEALTH and AESA, but lighter (20t), capable of supercruise to 1.5Mach (Su-30 is able supercruise with new engines up to 1.3-1.4Mach)...

When you are calculating range of the F-22 don't forget to figure in effective ground speed on a light super-cruise dash for a short time at around 65k plus ft.

But we know what we can expect - Su-30 class aircraft with STEALTH capabilitty...