Yours is an excellent question. Why DOES the F35 suck so bad at A2A combat? It sure has plenty of power. I suspect the design relies on thrust vectoring instead of aerodynamics to improve the turn rate - but that means the sustained turn rate will still stuck, AND as that vectored thrust is no longer pushing the plane…

...so you’ve never been to Subic Bay?

Doubtful. Or if so, you missed the coellesce part of DO because the USMC did a rather large exercise and only after did they seem to realize that distributing forces wasn’t enough, you had to be able to mass on targets of opportunity as well. I didn’t hear anything from the Corps about DO until late 2005 so I doubt…

It would do something about this....

Yes, I went and read Wikipedia too. It was pointed out to me by another reader who DOES know how to link references. I’m a pilot, I read all about it in the NTSB Reporter, but it’s been awhile. Should I now insist you know NOTHING about the crash too?

I saw that too! Pretty exciting. The SH engines only weight 500lbs per more than the Snecma.

Yeah, but you never know with the French. They’re the “back door man” of NATO. (Yes, you SHOULD let that Doors tune play in your head!)

Just back of the napkin here, but if you could shoehorn the SuperHornet’s engines into the Rafale you’d have one hell of a air-superiority fighter to provide CAP and fleet defense of the carrier group. It has a very large wing, and the canard, unlike the Hornet’s tail, works with the wing to provide additional lift,…

I get that the Europeans want their own aerospace industries, and having their own fighters is a big part of that, but I think that logic hits the skids where the engines are concerned. None of them are any better than G/E or P&W, so why not use whatever the US uses and keep the cost over-runs limited to the actual…

...and every ISIS bomb that goes off in a European city makes that wake-up call louder, as does Putin cutting off their gas in winter so they have more time to talk about defending themselves while shivering in their long coats sipping espresso and nibbling on scones hoping their pipes haven’t burst when they get back…

This is what Europe “Standing on it’s own two feet” looks like. If we’re serious about pivoting to the pacific and having Europe fend for itself but backstopping them via NATO effective joint exercises are crucial.

Oh and Lil Vladdy, one more thing while you’re having your Montenegro Meltdown...

As they say, the God is in the details. You may know this, but typically shrouded engines on wings produce about a third more gross thrust, but that third is lost to the drag attendant with the round shroud.

Well, it does look like Lil Putin is having a major meltdown over there, but he doesn’t make NATO policy

You are correct. Just looked it up.

An L1011 style tail engine is MUCH less susceptible to FOD, and damaged from ground crews loading cargo late at night crashing into one of the two outboard engines. Also, adding a 4the engine adds about 17,000lbs of essentially dead weight for the GE 90s.

The advantage of the L1011 configuration is you can use the engines to control both yaw and pitch. The DC-10 that crashed in Sioux City, Ia almost managed to bring the plane in safely without the use of its elevator by using the tail engine to control pitch. It also puts a lot of power right on the centerline so…

You may consider it a silly scenario, but the US Navy doesn’t, and neither does anyone else who has studdied the problem. The BraMos is an especially dangerous threat as the Iranians reportedly have about 500 of them. If that weren’t bad enough, the Russian-Indian development effort is working on a Mach 7 BraMos…

Great article! They fly out of what used to be Mather AFB in Sacramento all the time. When BP’s rig blew up in the Gulf of Mexico Shilling industries, maker of all things DSRV loaded one up with DSRVs and their control rooms and flew the whole thing down to the Gulf in one whack.

The distance to target, and number of Hornets to service them COULD be the limiting factor, but usually isn’t.