I rather like the F-35, particularly in its B variant. I consider it to be a first class piece of engineering, albeit with some notable teething problems.Ron5 wrote:If it isn't clearly & demonstrably superior to F-35 & Typhoon, not even the UK will buy Tempest and the UK will be back to a split F-35A/B. The Treasury is rather unsentimental about such things. And I have no doubts that Tempest will.Lord Jim wrote:The way I see TEMPEST evolving is a platform that may be the equal of the F-35 in air to ground, but will seriously exceed it in Air to Air, which is what we want from a Typhoon replacement.
However, if the UK is unable to develop (with our likely partners) a multirole combat aircraft that is superior, in range, payload and speed, to any member of the F-35 family then we have a serious problem, and should probably call it a day for our military aircraft industry..
Much like Typhoon or F-15 we should be free to design a thoroughbred, unencumbered by the constraints of carrier landings and VTOL. Mach 2 performance, an internal weapons bay and low-observability might have been exotic 30 years ago but really shouldn't be now.