The only alternative are modernizes 4gen fighters which are very vulnerable to modern air defenses.
A ‘buggy’ F-35 might still be a better alternative.
Also the British are counting for the F-35 to equip its carriers.
My understanding is that if you take away the stealth aspect the F-35 is a sluggish fighter bomber that would be outperformed by most 4th gens. Considering an F-35 is nearly the price of 10 4th gen fighters the choice to "upgrade" becomes pretty suspect for a lot of Nato partners.
Yes a sophisticated network of radars, sensors, and computers could potentially detect lower RCS aircraft from further away. But that problem would exist for larger RCS aircraft as well. Such a system is a prime target for first hour strike by cruise missiles as the radars required are very large and power intensive. It's not just about detection, but also being able to acquire a firing solution. A lower RCS plane is harder to track, easier to hide with jamming, and ultimately much more of a headache than a higher RCS plane.
>My understanding is that if you take away the stealth aspect the F-35 is a sluggish fighter bomber that would be outperformed by most 4th gens.
F35's performance is superior to the planes it replaces while providing both greater range and payload. It's got very high AoA capabilities which only the F-22 can surpass. Even more impressively it is able to do maneuvers which other plans cannot do without thrust vectoring.[0]
>Considering an F-35 is nearly the price of 10 4th gen fighters the choice to "upgrade" becomes pretty suspect for a lot of Nato partners.
Wrong. Lot 14 F-35A's cost $78M.[1] That's less than new Eurofighters and Dassault Rafale.
The F35 is the best thing currently in production. That's not to say it's perfect. The F-35's biggest flaws are not that of maneuverability or insufficient stealth. But of range. Despite improving on the airframes which it is replacing in range, it is not enough given the realities of Chinese A2/AD capabilities. The USAF needs a new fighter which is capable of significantly greater ranges as to not over stretch it's tanker network. The NGAD program hopes to address this.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-APFmIGo1k [1]: https://www.defensenews.com/air/2019/10/29/in-newly-inked-de...
First, "4th generation" can mean anything from an F-16A from 1978 to an F-16V of today. An F-16V is actually more expensive than an F-35A.
Second, if you take away the stealth of the F-35 it still has:
* A highly capable APG-81 radar with features like low-probability of intercept transmission modes, electronic attack (jamming) capability, multi-target track, ground moving target indication/track, synthetic aperture radar mapping, and passive (receive only) track capability
* Integrated electro-optical targeting pod with laser designator and range finder.
* Integrated software defined radio that can handle communications on UHF, VHF, Link-16, and inter-flight MADL
* 4 pi steradian awareness Distributed Aperture System that's a mid-wave IRST and missile launch/missile warning system
* Integrated Electronic Support Measures suite that provides Band 4/Band 5 detection and single ship rangefinding of incoming RF
F-16V has most of this same stuff or functional equivalents, but you pay tens of millions more to get it.
We could build 5-10 F-16s for each F-35, and many more A-10s, and they'd be better despite being ancient designs.
They're so expensive we can't even do proper flight training in them, it'd cost too much if we break one.
The new F-16V costs as near as makes no difference the cost of an F-35
Yes, why does this super stealthy plane not have support for lots of reflecting metal things hanging from its wings?
It has nothing to do with hanging stuff from the wings.