Nied

Yes but the F-16 and Eurofighter use RAM on their intakes and have a hidden compressors as well, I don't see how the J-10B is going to get a lower RCS when the Chinese are reportedly quite far behind the US and Europe in the development of RAM and RAS. Those pods are likely the FILAT targeting pod and Blue Sky navigation pod, both based off LANTIRN and TIALD pods recovered from downed American and British aircraft during the Gulf War.

I think you may be overestimating the effect putting a DSI inlet on the J-10 will have on it's RCS. The intake is still a big rounded affair ala the F-16 rather than a stealthy angular design, any RCS advantages would be derived from hiding more of the engine face. In this case it looks like the DSI was chosen more for performance and weight reasons (switching to DSIs on the FC-1/JF-17 reportedly saved a fair amount of weight and freed up space for an extra few hundred pounds of fuel). What's more interesting to me is the F-16E like angled nosecone seam (edge aligned with the intake and several panel lines along the nose no less) indicating that the Chinese are developing an AESA radar.

Expanding on this, the core of the CFM56 is heavily based on the F101 and F110. From what I can tell the Chinese took apart some of their CFM-56s and worked backwards to their own F110ish analogue. I suppose if you're going to copy something it wouldn't hurt to copy one of the best fighter engines in the world.

I'll believe this when I see it.

No, Boeing and the Eurofighter consortium aside, they are very bad. The reason the F-22 and F-35s vertical stabs are OK is because they are aligned along a different plane (in both cases with the underside of the fuselage) and are at a proper angle for advantageous radar reflection. Canards slightly above the wing would form a nice 90 degree box that from any angle other than dead on would be a huge radar reflector (that's why the Super Hornet's boxy diamond shaped intakes are stealthy, while the F-15's or F-14's big square intakes have an enormous RCS).

That's only partially true. Canards work best on fighters when they're set slightly above the level of the wing like on a Typhoon or Gripen this allows them to direct airflow over the top of the wing at high angles of attack more efficiently which is the whole reason canards are being fitted to many 4th and 5th generation designs. The problem is that in stealth designs you want all horizontal control surfaces to be on the same level for edge alignment purposes (both the F-35 and F-22 have horizontal stabs along the same plane as their wings, and the Raptor's stabs are even set into the wing a little) so the two requirements are at cross purposes. That's not to say that canards are impossible to use on a stealthy design (both the Rafale and Su-30 have their canards mounted level with their wings) but it does make the design work more difficult. Simple aerodynamics, when an aircraft with a big delta wing (like say a Mirage 2000) makes a hard turn it's going into a high angle of attack just like any fighter, however since it's got a bigger wing it's exposing a much larger surface area to the airstream, and that big high lift delta turns into a barn door. It gets even worse because the way the control surfaces used to pull into a hard turn actually reduce the lift of the wing, so it has to pull even higher AoA to compensate causing even more of that barn door effect. Newer canard deltas like the Typhoon, Gripen, and Rafale mitigate this effect greatly by using their canards instead of the control surfaces at the back of the wing, also their previously mentioned effects on airflow over the top of the wing helps reduce the AoA needed for a given turn.

That's flat out wrong. The original requirement asked for JSF designs to meet or exceed F-16 performance. Supercruise was not included in the performance specs because it would have increased the cost of any design by quite a bit which ran counter to the JSF's whole reason detre, though I don't doubt competition with the F-22 was considered as well.

It's like something out of GI Joe.

Isreal could get the same effect cheaper by upgrading the rest of their Falcon fleet to F-16I standard and popping in an AESA (SABR or Elta 2052). Japan might find the idea of halving their existing F-15s' RCS appealing but would they want to do the same to their missile loads? At any rate they've turned their noses up at the idea of upgraded Eagles, and if the congress doesn't repeal the Raptor ban soon they'll likely start building their own Typhoons. That leaves Saudi Arabia as the only large source of orders and I can't imagine why they'd go for the SE when they could expand their buy of Typhoons or re-instate their Rafale purchase and get much more bang for their petro-bucks.

I'm going to be the dissenting voice here and say the SE is really underwhelming. The signature reduction measures are meager at best, there's no edge alignment and it still retains the big square radar reflective intakes (as opposed to the edge aligned diamond intakes on the Super Hornet or Raptor). The canted tailfins are a good idea but I'm curious how they'll get them to work structurally as the mockup looks like they just sawed off the old Eagle tail fins and welded them back on at an angle. The weapons load it can carry in the FAST packs is pitiful, slightly less than an F-35 but without anywhere close to the level of LO the JSF has to mitigate it. While the (unspecified) AESA is good, it doesn't have an IRST or the comprehensive DASS the Typhoon, Rafale, F-35 or even Super Hornet have to back it up. The Eagle's no slouch when it comes to maneuverability but I don't see how it's supposed to compete against advanced FBW designs like the eurocanards, the Super Hornet or even the JSF (latest on it says it combines the high speed performance of a mid block Falcon with the low speed/high AoA performance of a Hornet/Super Hornet). In the end I can't see a reason to buy a SE when there are better fighters available for the same price (Typhoon, JSF) or roughly equivalent fighters for less (Super Hornet, Rafale, Grippen).

The PAF currently flies a motely crew of early model F-16As, some brand new Block 50 F-16Cs, Mirages (F-1 and 200 IIRC) and Chinese Mig-21 rip offs (F-7). They're about to put the JF-17 into production (a Chinese built off-shoot of a unused Mig design), and are in talks to purchase a handful of J-10s (Chinese Lavi rip off). They're unlikely to be buying any Russian fighters any time soon given the close relationship their arch-enemy India has with Russia. In fact they've already had trouble buying both the JF-17 and J-10 because both of those aricraft use Russian engines. Lockheed was actually very careful to keep the level of RAM down to a minimum when designing the F-22, it mostly covers some panel edges and the leading edge surfaces. You can actually see it in some shots of Raptors fresh out of the factory before they get their paint, generally the areas already in gray have RAM. Besides as others have pointed out, if you're going to remove the RAM from the Raptor you might as well buy a Typhoon (just strip out the CAPTOR and replace it with an APG-79).

NK doesn't have any more Mig-29s than Serbia did, and they're likely in worse condition, I doubt their Mig-29s would give us any more trouble than the Serbian Migs did over Kosovo. While Pakistan now has Block 50 F-16s they got them from us last year and they would likely turn useless not long after some kind of revolution (we didn't sell them several years worth of spares like the Iranians). While the J-10 is a nice fighter it's nowhere near better than the F-15, most estimates (including one from the Pakistani Air Force) put it at as roughly equivalent to a block 30 or 40 F-16, and it's likely that the Chinese would cut off support for their fighters as well should an Islamic revolution overthrow the current govt. (they've got their own problem with Islamic radicals remember). If you want real threats North Korea's IADS is more problematic to an F-15 (or F-16) than their tiny Mig-29 fleet, Iran with it's brand new S-300s and heavily refurbished F-14 and Mig-29 fleet would be a tougher nut to crack than that, and Saudi Arabia with it's large F-15 fleet, AWACS and new Typhoons would be a bigger conventional threat in the case of an Islamic revolution.

India apparently likes re-using acronyms from their former colonizers. They even stand for the same thing.

It's almost exclusively intended for the export market. The VVS has dangled the prospect of orders in front of Mig, but they seem pretty committed to the Su-27 and it's derivatives over the Mig-29 and it's brethren. Right now its one of the top contenders for the IAF's MRCA competition, and it's altogether likely it wont be built if it doesn't win that.

Damn, beat me to it and put it better than I did. ^ What he said.

The idea that the F/S are space optimized seems to have originated with him though. Right and the VF-19A has both while the F/S has (simpler) LERXs, if it were optimized for space it should have gotten rid of the mass of both the canards and the LERxs. Neither are LERxs but they are simpler to maintain and cheaper to build since they have no moving parts. I never claimed it did, however so far the only evidence pointing to it being space optimized is that it doesn't have canards. However that doesn't explain the re-designed wings (the A models wider wingspan would actually be an advantage in space since it would allow the wingtip verniers a larger moment arm for a higher roll rate), or the less attention paid to RCS reduction (the F and S models have a few more right angles in their panels and the overall more bulbous styling would cause their radar cross section to balloon). However they are explained if the VF-19F/S are meant to be cheaper alternatives (if the wings don't need to swing in flight it greatly reduces the complexity of the hinge mechanism, careful shaping to reduce RCS drives the complexity/cost of manufacture up, the advantages of LERXs over canards I mentioned above).

Some will, so far only one or two squadrons have been equipped on an experimental basis. If or how many more is still up in the air. And to an extent you are right, but in the end it still comes down to fighter vs. fighter, and in that respect an F-15 isn't always going to be able to engage an Su-27 or Mig-35 without occasionally getting an R-77 in the face. That something the USAF would (understandably) like to avoid.

I think the point is that pound for pound the Su-27 or Mig-29 have worn down the US's previous advantages. They have electronically scanned radars versus the F-15s mechanically scanned ones (a decent electronically scanned radar can have double the range of a mechanical counterpart) and rough parity in missile technology and kinematic performance. In a real war-time scenario an F-15 would likely have the numerical and command assets you mentioned, but those alone aren't going to give it the type superiority the USAF is used to having against newer foes, making a conflict significantly more costly.

My understanding was that all future F/A-18Fs were going to be like that. Looks like they're making the switchover during productions of the RAAF's lot.

I believe the assumption was for the advanced variants of both fighters (Mig-29SMT or Mig-35 in the case of the Fulcrum, and Su-30 or Su-35 in the case of the Flanker). The newer versions do have excellent electronics and radars so I wouldn't be surprised at all if they could out perform a basic F-15. Remember the vast majority of the F-15 fleet are still using mechanically scanned radars, while the recent Sukhoi and Mig fighters have moved to electronically scanned systems of some form.

No you're thinking of the F-86 Cutlass. They designed it in the basement of the Alamo and went on to use it to beat the Japanese in Vietnam.

I heard it single handedly helped us beat the Russians in World War I!

What about a brand new Me-262? While P-51s (both real and re-productions) are almost ubiquitous at most airshows, I'm seeing more and more Yak-9s for some reason.

Scuttlebutt coming out of the DoD is that Gates will relent and go along with at least 60 more F-22s (for a total of 240 or so). I have to agree with Noyhauser here on exporting the Raptor to other countries. Exporting the F-22 strengthens some long standing allies (which in turns strengthens us), makes the planes cheaper to buy for everyone, and produces a good deal of US jobs to boot (not an insignificant consideration right now).