We need to make enough of them where the price comes down and make it our dominant fighter.
We will need them. Don’t think it will be long.
External loads degrade their stealth.
Why was “aerospace” removed from “Popular Keywords” and how can we get it put back on there?
Why does this “fighter” need a gun pod? Didn’t we learn anything from the F-4 Phantom fiasco? Put the gun INSIDE!
Huh??? A billion dollar fighter with a gun pod?? Why, absolutely nothing, not even an A-4 Skyhawk could get close. So why the gun?
Maybe for CAS??? Yeah a billion dollar machine brought down by a five cent round from an SKS.
This concept is nothing but a ditch waiting for an American bound man and an assasin.
This cannot be the entirety of our air-air effort. It will be overwhelmed by good enough at some point.
Can the pylons the external weapons are mounted on be removed for high stealth required sorties? If not I’d expect this adaptation gives what is touted to be a stealth fighter something like the radar signature of an F16 or F18. Could be wrong, the article doesn’t address the issue. Along with VTOL in some versions I’m not sure what advantage the bird has besides stealth over much older platforms with upgraded avionics and weapons control.
The F-4 at first only could handle missiles or bombs. Then the NVAF piloted by Russians started shooting them down and we had too hurriedly come up with gun pods for the F-4.
Fighters need internal wing and nose guns.