<SARCASM MODE ON>

Oh no the evil Lockheed Martin which dominates the globe now extended its bribery tentacles at the Spain.
Now it's the Spanish Air Force that says that the "Eurofighter cannot compare with the F-35" but they are obviously wrong and mistaken because we F-35 critics all know that the F-35 had problems from the beginning of its development and we know that opposed to any other fighter aircraft that the F-35 cannot ever evolve.

Besides we all know that the Typhoon is better than the F-35 because the former flew in more airshows than the later! So again the Spanish Air Force officials are all wrong because they don't know fighter aircraft as well as we F-35 critics basement dwellers!

<SARCASM MODE OFF>


Ufff, finally sarcasm is off and I can be me again!
In the link shared below you can read that Spain is also VERY interested in the F-35 (both -A and -B variants) and there's the following interesting paragraph:



The link is here:
http://elpais.com/elpais/2017/06/05/inenglish/1496652196_078384.html?id_externo_rsoc=TW_CC

Have fun and a nice weekend!

So basically the Spanish Navy needs a new VTOL, and in order to get a better price and go multi-vendor considers fielding F-35A alongside the Typhoon in the Air Force.

And some unnamed sources say this or that.

Yeah, definitely the end for European Fighter designs, sure.

I don't normally like dick comparisons, but how long exactly have you worked as a defense journalist in the past?

Now would be a very good time to buy some Lockheed Martin stock.

Six months ago would have been a good time to buy stock. Better still 5 years ago.

You really want to know what's a "dick comparison"?
Comparing "defense journalist" (which often don't know DICK what they're talking about) with TRUE Air Force personnel and people that work for respective National Defence Departments which work with the REAL STUFF. That's a "dick comparison"! Keep it cool. No need to shout. Also lets not elevate the language making it more than it was meant to be.

And preferring to believe in "defense journalists" instead of officials from the Armed Forces and Defence Departments of Australia, Denmark, Norway, Turkey, Italy, Netherlands, United Kingdom, United States, Israel, Japan, South Korea and you join in the interest of Belgium, Finland, Germany and Spain (many of these countries are actually European), making such a preference is really dick-ish!

And yes, "European Fighter designs" alongside with all other 4th and 4.5th gen fighter aircraft (like F-16, F/A-18s, F-15s, etc...) are becoming and will definitely become a thing of the past (and the F-35 is the future!) and speaking of dicks, you can bet your testicles on that! Just like it happened with F-4/Mig-23/Mig-25/etc... designs before it and F-86/Mig-15/etc... before it and so on...

Lets be blunt: Have you personally spoken with the commander of a carrier air wing about the F-35 advantages and disadvantages for his mission? With test pilots? Or with high ranking military officials involved in the politics of procurring jet fighters?

You're the one here who has to rely on public sources. I just don't get why your emotional investement is so tightly tied to the Stubblenose.

+1

Well, I have, actually, but that doesn't seem to matter to anyone here.

There are actually lots of sources from "high ranking military officials involved" and test pilots and of course actual pilots. Most F-35 critics and many "defense journalist" just for some reason (IMO personal agenda) decide to ignore it.

For example one of the criticism that many "defense journalist" often claim is that the F-35 isn't agile. Well there's a well known article posted by an actual Norwegian Air Force F-35 pilot (which was previously a F-16 pilot) which was posted at the official Norwegian Department of Defence blog which clearly dismisses such claim. This article was posted more than a year ago but yet still many people (including "defence journalists") still perpetuate the same claim which is now clearly a lie.
The same or similar happens with the vast majority of F-35 criticism - They are outright false or there were problems which occurred during the F-35 development which are by now mostly solved, afterall the aircraft is in development.

So having discussed/arguing about this same issues for what is now more than 5 years (or more), I see that my points (and not only) were "vindicated".
However this is like pointing out that a wall will be painted in white, others disagree but the wall ends up being painted in white but those others say that the color isn't white despite being blatantly white. So yes, this makes me "emotional", sorry about that...

By the way, the link for article that I mentioned above (basically comparing the agility of the F-16 with the F-35) from an actual Norwegian Air Force F-35 pilot is below (English on the second lower part of the page):
http://nettsteder.regjeringen.no/ka...n-a-dogfight-what-have-i-learned-so-far/

Well, to me it matters!
I'm speaking for myself but please feel free to share any info you got.

I just am acquainted with someone fairly high up in the US Navy, and it's not like we talk all the time, but we've had a few conversations about aircraft, and I hear things he says through mutual friends. He started off flying A-7s, then transitioned to Legacy Hornets (which of course weren't legacy at the time), and then to Super Hornets, and I believe his last flying gig was as a CAG.

Few people seem to remember this now, but when the Super Hornet was first introduced, it seemed like everybody hated it (here's a discussion thread from 2001 LINK. When I spoke to this person, he said it was actually pretty good, and pointed out some specific capabilities he liked. I would share that info on discussion forums to "defend" the SH, and of course no one cared, but it turns out he was right!

And now it's similar with the F-35 - he sees a lot of capability, has not really said anything bad about it, and has never mentioned another aircraft was needed.

Yep. Remember those days well. I also remember similar "armchair experts" ripping the M1 Abrams, the AH-1 Apache and other such weapons that have gone on to prove to be the best in the world.

I also read that a pilot (F-15C) said speed was essentially one of the least important vital aspects for a fighter. It wasn't entirely worthless, but it was so far down the list that he didn't consider the slower speed of the Super Hornet to be noteworthy. Which is a large part of the reason why he believed the Super Hornet was superior to the Rafale / Eurofighter. And I suppose if you look at it that way, the Super Hornet does have (as of now) a more well rounded weapons selection. And I'm not sure if the radar technology in the Eurofighter / Rafale is up to par yet either.

The what?!

My only beef with it is that it's not a Tomcat.

AH-64, excuse me. Chemo brain.

Don't forget the MBT-70, AH-56, F-111, and OICW.

Thanks for your insight Arthonon.

That's exactly what I've argued about in the past decade when we had the Tomcat vs Super Hornet debate and like you said this is happening all over again with the F-35.

With all due respect, that's not a valid comparison afterall the MBT-70, AH-56 and OICW never passed or evolved from the stage of prototype - for example and as a comparison the F-35 has long left the prototype stage.

Moreover and in the case of the AH-56 the decision to cancel it was basically political/institutional with the Air Force having the control over fixed-wing combat aircraft while the Army couldn't (and can't) operate fixed-wing combat aircraft and there were doubts over the Cheyenne (AH-56) if this was a fixed-wing or a rotary-wing aircraft.

Also and if my memory doesn't fail me, in the case of the MBT-70 cancelation was in great part due to politics as well - The Germans wanted things on the tank while the Americans wanted another things and vice-versa.

Finally I fail to see your F-111 example since this ended up being a great success (despite initial teething/development problems).