Best aircraft complementing F-35...

[ekrem]

except F-22.
A mix like Italy/UK prefers with F-35 and Eurofighter combo?
I excluded the F-22 because it is not available for export and its development was no multi-national project.

What do you think?

 

[Intense]

The F-35 is the result of the Defense Department's Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program, which sought to build a multirole fighter optimized for the air-to-ground role with secondary air-to-air capability. The JSF requirement was to meet the needs of the Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps and allies, with improved survivability, precision engagement capability, and reduced life cycle costs. By using many of the same technologies developed for the F-22, the F-35 has the opportunity to capitalize on commonality and modularity to maximize affordability.

The Lockheed Martin X-35 was chosen over the competing Boeing X-32 primarily because of Lockheed’s lift-fan STOVL design, which proved superior to the Boeing vectored-thrust approach. The lift fan, which is powered by the aircraft engine via a clutched driveshaft, was technically challenging but DoD concluded that Lockheed has the technology in hand. The lift fan has significant excess power which could be critical given the weight gain that all fighter aircraft experience.

Lockheed Martin developed four versions of the Joint Strike Fighter to fulfill the needs of the Navy, Marine Corps, Army, Air Force and the United Kingdom Royal Air Force and Navy. All versions have the same fuselage and internal weapons bay, common outer mold lines with similar structural geometries, identical wing sweeps, and comparable tail shapes. The weapons are stored in two parallel bays located aft of the main landing gear. The canopy, radar, ejection system, subsystems, and avionics are all common among all different version as is the core engine which is based on the F119 by Pratt & Whitney.

Additional systems on the F-35 include:
1.Northrup Grumman advanced electronically scanned array (AESA) multi-function radar
2.Snader/Litton Amecon electronic countermeasures equipment
3.Lockheed Martin electro-optical targeting system
4.Northrup Grumman distributed aperture infrared sensor (DAIRS) thermal imaging system
5.Vision Systems International advanced helmet-mounted display

Federation of American Scientists :: F-35/Joint Strike Fighter (JSF)

 

[Intense]

Typhoon EF-2000 Eurofighter /
Eurofighter is a single-seat, twin-engine, agile combat aircraft which will be used in the air-to-air, air-to-ground and tactical reconnaissance roles. The design of Eurofighter Typhoon is optimised for air dominance performance with high instantaneous and sustained turn rates, and specific excess power. Special emphasis has been placed on low wing loading, high thrust to weight ratio, excellent all round vision and carefree handling. The use of Stealth technology is incorporated throughout the aircraft’s basic design.
In September 1998 the Eurofighter was also designated the Typhoon, though this nomenclature is intended only for use in export markets outside Europe. Eurofighter remains the offical name in Europe, and Typhoon will not automatically be the EF2000s name with the four partner air forces when it enters service in 2002/3.


Eurofighter's air dominance supremacy and versatility as a multi-role combat aircraft is marked by its highly potent and comprehensive air-to-surface attack capability:
Air Interdiction - capable of delivering a large payload over long distances, by day or night. Multiple, flexible sensors coupled with passive modes of delivery, and the retention of a full air-to-air fit ensure a formidable weapon system
Close Air Support - ability to remain on task for long periods. Its sophisticated sensor suite allows close co-ordination with ground commanders, and the identification of individual targets
Suppression of Enemy Air Defences (SEAD) - the combination of pinpoint navigational accuracy, highly sophisticated onboard sensors and dedicated 'fire and forget' weapons, ensure effective targeting of enemy air defences
Maritime Attack - dedicated radar modes and datalink enable Eurofighter Typhoon to operate autonomously, or as part of an offensive force

Eurofighter’s high performance is matched by excellent all round vision and by sophisticated attack, identification and defence systems which include the ECR 90 long range radar and Infra Red Search and Track (IRST) system, advanced medium and short range air-to-air missiles and a comprehensive electronic warfare suite to enhance weapon system effectiveness and survivability. Eurofighter Typhoon is intentionally aerodynamically unstable to provide extremely high levels of agility, reduced drag and enhanced lift. The unstable design cannot be flown by conventional means and the pilot controls the aircraft via a computerised ‘fly by wire’ system.

The Eurojet EJ200 military turbofan was designed specifically to match Eurofighter Typhoon’s mission requirements. The overall design ensures a small lightweight engine with the thrust and strength to match the typically on demand reheat temperatures generated during combat. The EJ200 engine combines high thrust with low fuel consumption. To reduce ownership cost over Eurofighter Typhoon’s in-service life of 25 years or 6,000 flying hours, and to ensure maximum availability, the important areas of Reliability, Maintainability and Testability have been given equal priority to performance and flight safety.

EFA-2000 Eurofighter

 

[Intense]

Military Aircraft and Aircraft Equipment Tutorials

Federation of American Scientists :: Military Aircraft and Aircraft Equipment Tutorials

 

[ekrem]

Future Combos of F-35 users:

Australia
100 F-35
86 F-18
Royal Australian Air Force - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
List of aircraft of the Canadian Forces Air Command - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Canada
103 F-18
65 F-35
Future Canadian Forces projects - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Canadian Forces Air Command - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Italy
131 F-35
28 F-16
96 Eurofighter
Italian Air Force - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Netherlands (no combo)
85 F-35
Royal Netherlands Air Force - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Turkey
116 F-35
240 F-16
Turkish Air Force - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

UK
138 F-35
160 Eurofighter
List of active United Kingdom military aircraft - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[ekrem]

Italy seems to have the best mix in my opinion.

 

[ekrem]

Harriers of UK were not included in above listing.
That aircraft's era is over and will be junked either by budget cutsor delivery of F-35.

I don't know what happens with UK's Tornados tough.
List of active United Kingdom military aircraft - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wiki says, that they are starting to be withdrawn in 2011.

 

[ekrem]

F-4 and F-5 of Turkish Airforce were also not included in above list as they will be withdrawn completely till 2020.
We will replace them either by KF-X future Aircraft or Eurofighter.

KF-X
Turkey could join Korea?s fighter plan
Turkey may develop fighter aircraft with S Korea, Indonesia - Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review

Eurofighter
Eurofighter hopes to sell 40 jets to Turkey - Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review

But nothing is certain so far.
F-4 and F-5 will be flying till 2020 allthough those aircrafts era is also over.

 

[ekrem]

Eurofighter is offering to invite Turkey in next model of Eurofighter (Eurofighter 2020).
I think, we will go for Eurofighter 2020 as replacements for F-4's and F-5's.
I don't think, we will make adventures with S.Korea and Indonesia with the KF-X project.

"We are offering Turkey the opportunity to jointly develop the Eurofighter 2020, the next version of the Eurofighter," said Marco Valerio Bonelli, top spokesman for Eurofighter. "It wouldn't be the production of parts, but joint development."
(...)
Italy, because of its close political and defense ties with Turkey, has been tasked within the Eurofighter consortium to coordinate potential cooperation with Turkey. In recent years, Italy has become Turkey's largest weapons supplier after the United States.

Fightercraft makers battle for lucrative Turkish market - Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review

"Our cooperation [with Turkey] had been based mostly on industrial and commercial cooperation.
Now we need to carry this cooperation to the strategic level for 30 to 40 years," said Guido Crosetto, Italy's deputy defense minister.

Italy seeks bigger role in Turkish defense market - Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review

 

[Trajan]

Future Combos of F-35 users:

Australia
100 F-35
86 F-18
Royal Australian Air Force - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
List of aircraft of the Canadian Forces Air Command - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Canada
103 F-18
65 F-35
Future Canadian Forces projects - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Canadian Forces Air Command - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Italy
131 F-35
28 F-16
96 Eurofighter
Italian Air Force - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Netherlands (no combo)
85 F-35
Royal Netherlands Air Force - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Turkey
116 F-35
240 F-16
Turkish Air Force - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

UK
138 F-35
160 Eurofighter
List of active United Kingdom military aircraft - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

humm, mark me surprised. Not a all weather AS platform among them.

 

[Intense]

By JEREMY PAGE
ZHUHAI, China—A year after the collapse of the Soviet Union, a cash-strapped Kremlin began selling China a chunk of its vast military arsenal, including the pride of the Russian air force, the Sukhoi-27 fighter jet.
For the next 15 years, Russia was China's biggest arms supplier, providing $20 billion to $30 billion of fighters, destroyers, submarines, tanks and missiles. It even sold Beijing a license to make the Su-27 fighter jet—with imported Russian parts.
Today, Russia's military bonanza is over, and China's is just beginning.
After decades of importing and reverse-engineering Russian arms, China has reached a tipping point: It now can produce many of its own advanced weapons—including high-tech fighter jets like the Su-27—and is on the verge of building an aircraft carrier.
Not only have Chinese engineers cloned the prized Su-27's avionics and radar but they are fitting it with the last piece in the technological puzzle, a Chinese jet engine.
In the past two years, Beijing hasn't placed a major order from Moscow.
Now, China is starting to export much of this weaponry, undercutting Russia in the developing world, and potentially altering the military balance in several of the world's flash points.
This epochal turnaround was palpable in the Russian pavilion at November's Airshow China in the southern city of Zhuhai. Russia used to be the star of this show, wowing visitors with its "Russian Knights" aerobatic team, showing off fighters, helicopters and cargo planes, and sealing multibillion dollar deals on the sidelines.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704679204575646472655698844.html

 

[Blagger]

except F-22.
A mix like Italy/UK prefers with F-35 and Eurofighter combo?
I excluded the F-22 because it is not available for export and its development was no multi-national project.

What do you think?

That's very likely to change. Obama has been approached by the Australian government who are interested in applying to purchase the F-22.

Lifted from Wikipedia's F-22 Raptor page under "Ban on exports":

On 28 October 2009, President Barack Obama signed the 2010 defense authorization bill (H.R. 2647) which included provisions requiring the DoD to prepare a report on the costs and feasibility for an F-22 export variant and another report on the impact of F-22 export sales on the U.S. aerospace industry

Whilst the F-22 is still currently unavailable for export, selected RAF pilots have been given the exclusive opportunity to fly the F-22. From this privileged experience, they're yet to find a fault with the aircraft, and one RAF pilot has been seconded to the USAF to gain more experience of the fighter.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ-Mfd6K6CI"]RAF Tornado pilot, Flt Lt. Dan Robinson, on flying the F-22 Raptor.[/ame]

A date has yet to be set, but both the USAF and RAF are reportedly keen to pit the F-22 against the Eurofighter as at present, they're one and others only worthy opponent. Watch this space.

 

[ekrem]

(...)
A date has yet to be set, but both the USAF and RAF are reportedly keen to pit the F-22 against the Eurofighter as at present, they're one and others only worthy opponent. Watch this space.

I don't think the UK will get any F-22. This has 2 reasons:
First, USA has cut F-22 purchases last year. After the production of last F-22 is finished, all the tools and equipment to produce further F-22 will be dismantled and conserved. US probably will produce F-22 again when big war is approaching.

Second, the UK has budget cuts and is decreasing Army size considerably.
If UK wants F-22 it has to order NOW before production facilities for F-22 will be dismantled.

The UK has already purchased military-hardware on debt.
It has to cut 37 Billion Pounds in defense-budget just to meet obligations for unfunded military hardware.

The initial challenge is to save £37bn by 2020, merely to meet unfunded obligations accepted by the last government.

FT.com / Comment / Opinion - Trident skewers Britain?s post-imperial refit

 

[Blagger]

Forgive me if I've mislead you, ekrem. But I never said that he UK was going to purchase the F-22 Raptor. I was just saying that outside of the USAF, the only foreign airmen to have flown the aircraft were RAF fighter pilots, that's all. It's part of what we call the 'special arrangement'. We share most of our innovations with America as well - American pilots have flown and familiarised themselves with RAF Eurofighters.

And as you said/wrote, the UK certainly isn't in any position to be shopping around for new military hardware.

 

[ConHog]

Forgive me if I've mislead you, ekrem. But I never said that he UK was going to purchase the F-22 Raptor. I was just saying that outside of the USAF, the only foreign airmen to have flown the aircraft were RAF fighter pilots, that's all. It's part of what we call the 'special arrangement'. We share most of our innovations with America as well - American pilots have flown and familiarised themselves with RAF Eurofighters.

And as you said/wrote, the UK certainly isn't in any position to be shopping around for new military hardware.

Not to mention the damn things are SO expensive that we won't be building enough of them to have the luxury of exporting them. I've heard estimates that we will have fewer than 200 of them operational ourselves at their peak.

 

[ekrem]

It has been decided today, that Turkey will build its own Aircraft to replace the F-4's after 2020.
The indigenious Aircraft is expected to be operational in 2023.

Turkey to build ‘national, original’ fighter aircraft - Hurriyet Daily News and Economic Review

 

[ekrem]

Turkey decides to build first war plane [ WORLD BULLETIN ]

National Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul said that they decided to project the country's first war plane. (...)
The plane will be a new generation jet and fly with F16 and F35 jets," he said (...)
Asked whether Turkey would cooperate with South Korea to manufacture the war plane, Gonul said, "there are 5-6 countries in the world manufacturing war planes. South Korea also wants to build war planes just like Turkey. We can cooperate with South Korea. For the time being, we decided to manufacture Turkey's own war plane."

 

[ekrem]

Defense Minister: We'll obtain 116 F-35
He said it in parliament, when another parliamentarian asked him.

Türkiye 116 adet F-35 alacak - ZAMAN

 

[ekrem]

Meanwhile Britain is scrapping Eurofighters which they obtained just 3.5 years ago.


RAF is to scrap more than 50 Eurofighter/Typhoon jets which became operational only three years ago at a cost of more than £4.5bn because it cannot afford to update them.
Armed forces face further £1bn in cuts | UK news | The Guardian

They also reduce their Battle Tanks down to 50 in total.
Army's 400 tanks may be cut to 50 - Telegraph

 

[ekrem]

Italy, Brazil Top Turkey's List Of Potential FX Partners

Officials said that Turkey's new fighter "would be a next-generation type, would replace the older, U.S.-made F-4Es and would function well with the F-16s and the F-35."

They confirmed the new aircraft mostly would be meant for air-to-air fighting. The F-4Es are air-to-air fighters, while the F-16s and F-35s are designed mainly for air-to-ground operations.
Italy, Brazil Top Turkey's List Of Potential FX Partners - Defense News

S.Korea seems to be eliminated, as their fighter aircraft development program foresees S.Korea to have absolute majority in the project. Turkey could only join S.Korea's airctaft project with a 20% share, whilst Turkey wants at least a 50% share in the development.
So now we initiate our own programs and seek for partnership from either Alenia (Italy) or Embraer (Brazil).