meh yes and no. the imfamous rafale kill on the F-22 with fuel tanks was slightly held back. overall i so still think that a eurocanard in WT will curbstomp raptors in the dogfight. not to mention that the F-22 will have worse missiles than the eurocanards. 9X will be close to the likes of ASRAAM but an amraam isnt going to cut it vs meteors and such
i agree that the F-35 wont be a dogfighter, tbh its not much of an anything beyond a reduced viability imho, but i am a hater of the lightning 2
not really, 9X and ASRAAM fill different roles, 9X is basically a worse IRIST while the ASRAAM is meant as a long range IR missiles, its meant to be fired at 30+ km away from the target and close the distance fast so even in that situation the F22 is kinda screwed
honestly thats the issue with the US right now there isnt much better they can get in terms of A2A weapons, their new gen of BVR missiles is still in the testing phase so shouldn’t be added as other weapons have also been denied on such grounds, and the 9X is defiantly the worst of the gen5s IIR missiles
No, they started side by side although I guess one could argue that’s being “held back” just because the Rafale as a delta could have made a sharper initial turn-in.
Feel free to watch Gronky and Lemoine (Former US F-18 and F-16 pilots) analysis on the Rafale video dogfight. They concluded that the F-22 and Rafale started off equally (side-by-side) and the F-22 didn’t have fuel tank on.
The problem with the F-22 is that aircraft with a lot of weight just dumps speed like nothing else in-game regardless of the amount of thrust. While the F-22 would have the highest TWR in the game, it also would weigh just as much as a Sukhoi if not more, which means every turn would dump speed like crazy.
Doesn’t have to use TVC to dump speed either, like a lot of very heavy flight models in-game, for example the Sukhois, and allegedly the F-22 is just as heavy if not more than the sukhois.