
US clears F-35 sale to Romania, bolstering NATO’s eastern flank
The approval of the $7.2 billion deal for the fifth-generation fighter comes as NATO allies are worried about Russian aggression.

Its great to see you inventing as much about the future as you do about the present. really expanding your horizons.The standard Hornet is trash. What I'm talking about is an upgraded Hornet with the SH B3 radar and EW suite. This is what the USMC is doing right now. We are gonna do the same with the Mig-29, get it flying for 10 more years with modern avionics.
The F-35 may be the best jet today, questionable, but the version the RAAF have is currently not suitable for fighting a major adversary. And this is as per the American DoD itself. B4 and beyond are necessary, and old jets cannot carry all the B4 upgrades, never mind the stuff coming in the future that's meant to keep the jet relevant. Point being if you get into a fight with the Chinese between 2035 and 2040, your F-35s are gonna be "trash".
its interesting that they are working so hard to get back into the "trash" F-35 and the F-35 program "built on sand" one would think Turkey would be happy to have "escaped"![]()
Turkey seeking way back into F-35 program | eKathimerini.com
Turkey is seeking a solution to re-enter the American F-35 fighter jet program after being kicked out over its acquisition of the Russian-made S-400 missile system.www.ekathimerini.com
Turkey is seeking a solution to re-enter the American F-35 fighter jet program after being kicked out over its acquisition of the Russian-made S-400 missile system. To this end, Ankara is pushing for the inclusion of an amendment in the 2025 US defense budget (NDAA) that would allow it to avoid sanctions over the S-400.
Ankara has been pursuing an intensive behind-the-scenes-diplomatic push in recent months to find a formula that will allow it to purchase F-35 jets from the US, changing the goals of its defense strategy. According to sources, its has entirely reversed its stance on the S-400 and now appears eager to make any concessions to satisfy Washington, and thus submit a formal request to the US State Department for the fifth-generation fighters.
wakey!! wakey!!Wake me up when these 20 will be firmly ordered.
A reminder to the Greeks: the F-35 is still on the table. In April, it was said that the Greeks had two months to make up their minds...
Greece’s F-35 deal moves forward | eKathimerini.com
For 40 F-35s, they would have to pay $8.6 billion, i.e. as much as the Finns would have to pay for 64 F-35s. Basically, the Greeks will have to pay 50% more than the Finns...
Greece Modernizes Its Air Force With US F-35s & French Rafales
A little doubt, then, about the Greek signature for these F-35s, for which they were not entitled to the subsidies that the Finns obtained.
If so, this would be the F-35's second defeat against the Rafale and lead to the conclusion than when you have Rafale you don't need F-35 ...
This is the XXX promise by LM.
All the previous ones have not been honored. Why this one?
Nothing new, except if you have a source.wakey!! wakey!!
its amazing to me that we have gone from "the Rafale is going to win in Switzerland!" to "but, but, the greeks haven't ordered the F-35 just yet!!" only to once again watch them just order anyway. so we arrive back at my original question that you retored with this jewel above. Whom are you trying to convince? and what is the point of such posts?
No.and yet the F-35 is more credible than its competitors. what a mystery I hope the French never try to solve.
Nothing new, except if you have a source.
They intend to buy, but nothing inked so far.
No.
It is the pizzo for all the NATO country to pay a little space under the big USA umbrella.
That might be meaningful if early reports on the F-35 weren't so positive, and if the French didn't have such negative opinions on every other fighter aircraft out there that isn't a Rafale or a Mirage variant anyway. The French give little respect to every other aircraft, and of course loath the Eurofighter so the F-35 is hardly unique. Its not a risk to say that any other fighter purchased that is not Mirage or Rafale the French will be unhappy with and claim its a debacle. In your minds everything that isn't a Rafale is an F-104 so nobody cares what you think.You will see in the future that F35 will become anothe F104 drama. A financial and operationnal one this time.
RAAF should have just extended the service life of the Hornets and gone all in on the NGAD.
Then you could have had a formidable force of 2 NGAD squadrons apart from the SH in time to face Chinese aggression, or just waited patiently for the F-35 to finish development.
The idea that anything less than a Block IV F-35 is useless against the Chinese is such a stupid statement that one wonders if it wasn't the brain child of LM itself and now propagated and blindly parroted by those who should understand at least some gray area, especially in air forces where no F-35s of any type are present...Now you have old crap that cannot fight the Chinese.
sure they will, sport. because that is how air forces workAnd soon, Indonesia will have a superior air force with the Rafale and IF-X.
you just forget a small little thing : USA is 7th more bigger than France, not to speak of Sweden.my favorite part is the insistence on the F-35s inferiority which makes the losses of the Rafale to the F-35, and the Gripen of course
False.That might be meaningful if early reports on the F-35 weren't so positive, and if the French didn't have such negative opinions on every other fighter aircraft out there that isn't a Rafale or a Mirage variant anyway. The French give little respect to every other aircraft, and of course loath the Eurofighter so the F-35 is hardly unique. Its not a risk to say that any other fighter purchased that is not Mirage or Rafale the French will be unhappy with and claim its a debacle. In your minds everything that isn't a Rafale is an F-104 so nobody cares what you think.
False.
I think F22 is really a game changer.
F/A 18 is (was) a nice machine (when SH18 is deceiving).
The south Korean KF-21 approach is smart, and I'm sur it will be a technical success if not a commercial one (i don't see the same future with KAAN...).
F35 is too complex, with a B variant that pull down the 2 others, and with a weapon system too ambitious at the beginning, so never tune, so with late developpment made on sand. That's all.
The F16 maestria is lost.
you just forget a small little thing : USA is 7th more bigger than France, not to speak of Sweden.
The diplomatic influence of USA is even more bigger. So it's not a surprise then succeed in selling it.
F35 is a diplomatic tool before beeing a weapon.
I think for years that a lot of country will regret this purchase, with years... another F104 saga.
Basically it can't supercruise, basically it hasn't the same agility, basically its avionic is not tune.The F-35 is basically a mini, single engine F-22 with better avionics.
We never had the parameters of these eval.the Rafales problem is not "diplomacy" or the size of the United States, the problem is that in multiple official evaluations the F-35 has scored higher than the Rafales.
Exactly for the same reason that f-35 failed in UAE and not The Rafale : Geopolitics.tells us that is why Rafale loses to F-35 (and Gripen)
Basically it can't supercruise, basically it hasn't the same agility, basically its avionic is not tune.
You know why?
Because it was studied as an attack fighter, to replace A10 and F16 in CAS role (to explain its sugar piece shape) and they tried to change it as a fighter to replace exported F16.
We never had the parameters of these eval.
The sole real leak was 2011 Swiss eval, unfortunately withour F35, and the looser, Gripen, was choosen !!!!
In the last swiss eval sudenly the simulation hours can replace real flights.... It is biaised, and you know that.
Exactly for the same reason that f-35 failed in UAE and not The Rafale : Geopolitics.
UAE dont want to suffer the US way to see the world.
Greece want to keep a choice and so choose to have both fighters.
Europe choose mainly the F-35 because they want the US umbrella to stay in Europe.
The parliamentary audit body said it was “worrying” that more weight was given to technical specifications than the political or economic consequences of rival bids. This made it difficult to assess which deal was in the best overall interests of the country.
5th gen according to own LM definition :The F-35 has better avionics than F-22, was never designed to be a super cruiser and would require thrust vectoring to get the same kind of agility which would add a lot of cost
some government actions during the process were “worrying” or “inappropriate”.In this story there is a direct contradiction to the claims by the posters here, the F-35 far from winning on "diplomacy" actually won on the technical specifications, and there was a complaint that not enough political or economic consideration went into the F-35 choice.
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Fighter jet purchase “worrying” but legal, says Swiss audit body
Switzerland’s procurement of F-35A fighter jets from the United States is declared lawful by parliamentary auditors.www.swissinfo.ch
suffice to say that French excuses not only fail to be true but are seriously unconvincing as it is, and since it has been 3 years, the initial "guesses" by the French of what went wrong in Switzerland should be reassessed rather than repeating the same tired falsehoods.
LOL.when we see the Gripen doing better than Rafale in Finland