When the F-35 perform high AOA maneuvers it has the same problem and with out canards or TVC it turns even slower.

To drop canards from the JSF design was not a decision of Lockheed, MDD or Northrop. The Pentagon decided that the JSF (or JAST at that time) wouldn’t need a good A2A performance as the F-22 should do air combat alone and the F-35 should just perform strike missions. Now they have the problem that the USAF just have a…

Canards are in use all the time, also when they don’t move. They always produce lift and give extra energy to the main wing. Similar as the F-22 is doing it with its tail the canards can be aligned for the lowest RCS when needed (the Eurofighter is doing that) and just be used as a kind of more efficient LERX, but…

That is actually wrong. Lockheed itself tested both designs and rated both canard wing design and conventional tail design as equal for stealth, Northrop too.

That would be a big change. To add a second tank like the liftfan replacement tank you need to stretch the fuselage by 4 feet and to add a spherical 120kw laser system you need to stretch the fuselage by another 4 feet. That would add at least 2 tons for the laser and 1 ton for the stretch and 2 tons of fuel. To…

At least the X-32 would have had several advantages over the F-35 like much more combat radius (840nm) or that it would have been more maneuverable. But the best design for the JSF would have been the MDD design.

The Gripen has a combat radius of 800 nm+. Without CFTs the F/A-18E can’t compete.

Fortunately the Gripen has more range than Super Hornet, Lightning and Eurofighter and contrary to Super Hornet, Rafale and Eurofighter never crashed because of engine problems.