Lockheed Martin F-35A Lightning

looks like they will stay at the top too (at least britain and Italy with japan will be) with GCAP Tempest

By the time meteor is integrated AIM-260 will hit IOC

they are getting there, america just isnt quite the top dog they were 40 years ago

We were top dog until 2017 when PL-17 on full stealth fighters

got to wonder how good it is with a 400km range as there must be a lot of tradeoffs with how big it has to be to reach that far. like can it turn at all to reach even close to that?

Id guess turn performance better than aim-54 but worse than 120A

Issue is more that it targets stuff like awacs and tankers though

It’s because we’re used to calling it the F-35. In a timeline where the F-35 was called the F-24, it would be weird to call it the F-35 just the same.

F-35 literally just sound nicer to say than F-24

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Maybe 5th gen will have a place in the game in the future, but right now there’s really too much to add and improve in the game. For example we need the hornets (f/a-18c/d), superhornets (f/a-18e/f) and some more flankers (su-30, su-35 perhaps).
5th gen fighters will probably change top tier a lot, and actually will probably create a 9th rank in aviation trees.

F-24 doesnt roll off the tongue and also doesn’t reflect the international development of the project

Anyway the key before the f-22 designation was a kfir so it doesn’t exactly make sense in the first place