lot of people are against that unfortunately
Yeah it might be. Even worse then. Pretty much the same radar as that of F2’s.
Great at 13.7.
Bottom of the barrel at 14.3.
THE worst one at like 15.0 or wherever they put 5th gens.
Except. Its not.
BVR king? Okay, with very very limited missile count, entirely reliant on stealth, take that way, its a kinda slow aircraft with average FM and limited CM count.
CAS monster? It carries less weapons than any of the Euro-Deltas
Sensor fusion? Not that uncommon and found on a lot of modern aircraft
Take away the stealth, and you have something akin to an F-16. Like seriously. Primary docs indicate ECRS Mk2 can detect an F-35 at 60km. Its gunna be screwed in game
or maybe the superior plane isnt quite so superior?
Is that that Korean news blog thing or do you have some other source?
It would actually have worse gimbal. F-22’s gimbal is 60± IRL while the F-15C GE’s radar is ±70 in-game.
Not only stealth, it has one of the most advanced ECM, if not the most advanced ECM suite in the world. Firing 4 AIM-260 then egressing back to base will be enough to wreak havoc when you multiply that squadron size.
It carries more weapons than the Eurofighter in Beast mode.(~10’000kg vs 9’000kg for the Eurofighter)
Yes it sacrifice stealth but if you can fly the Eurofighter somewhere, you can damn well fly the F-35A in Beast mode in the same area so stealth isn’t a talking point there.
The F-35 has received so much praise from pilots, general staff, etc. Why do you think 1290 have been produced so far? Because the plane is truly good and a great replacement for the F-16 especially when the F-35A cost about ~100 million per plane in 2025 versus a rafale costing 200 million+.
Would you rather have 2 F-35A or 1 Rafale for the same price? Now multiply that, are you getting more capabilities out of 10 Rafale or 20 F-35A? If you say 10 Rafale, then you’re completely deluded.
F-35 basically embodies the modern day harrier except it’s worse in the visual arena.
However as I do actually have insider information on this as I worked for a company that made supporting systems for the F-35. The American F-35A actually doesn’t have the computing power on board to calculate everything its sensors bring in.
Sensor fusion on the F-35 is on an entirely different level to anything before. The HMD can literally display live moments of troops a full 360 degrees if you want it too.
It’s got a very high TWR and a fuselage made for high AOA. And TVC
The goal in the modern dogfight is point rapidly and fire a death ray.
Its stealth was designed to make it hard for X band emitters to pinpoint and that’s what ARH missiles use.
Defeating Fox 3 in stealth aircraft is basically a non-event. However you can bring down Fox - 3 very easily with perfect system integration.
Yep. As I said literally F-2’s radar (±60 AESA) at 15.0ish. Versus absolute monsters like EFs, su-35/57 etc.
And even if we go by the assumption “oh but they will surely model XXX” then rest assured, the same would apply to aforementioned monsters just as much.
This should’ve been the case since December 2024 with the Rafale Dominance. Gaijin’s refusal to give decompression causes these imbalances. And with the assumed addition of a premium YF-23 I can’t see why they would start here.
They already have a very significant missile advantage.
As a very open advocate for decompression I think you know the answer to that.
So the fight is a stalemate outside pilot error.
it was an RAF source iirc, but I cant find it at the moment, was posted on the forums last week.
Do you know in which Topic it was posted so that i can try to find it?
Wasn’t Block 4 supposed to remedy this?
No, the level of stuff involved with this is too much.
The computer required is about 5x5 feet across and costs some 3.5 million dollars. It sits in a F-550 heavily modified and fitted with EMI shielding (I helped weld this up) the computer itself was installed at nellis. They had airforce reps telling us a bit about the system.
It’s called MUSTANGS built by Nomad GCS if you’re curious.

Right and?
So does the Rafale, Typhoon and Gripen E.
Do you have primary sources stating the F-35 is actually significantly superior to any of those 3? or are you assuming because its american?
Last I heard, they were outfitting the F-35 with British made Britecloud.
That may or may not actually make it to service and havent been fitted yet.
How many individual weapons can it carry though?
and why not just use an F-15E instead if you are deleting the stealth?
Because its america and they need to recoup the stupid amount they spent on it.
Or is it only so cheap because they mass producing them?
Or would you rather have 10 Gripen Es or 8 F-35s?
Though the only reason the F-35 is cheap is because they are building loads. If you built as many Typhoon or Rafales, the cost per unit would be lower.
Exactly. The F-22 doesnt autoamtically win because its an F-22
Yes but when you understand things a bit better than the average us main and you look into the actual capabilities of the thing I’m very glad it on our side lol.
A squadron of F-22s could probably wipe out the entire Russian airforce.
But so could 2 squadrons of eft or Rafale
and cant Stirker II do the same though?
There is every chance the Typhoon will be able to do the same in a few years
Its actually stupid they wont let the UK put Stirker II on the F-35 as its a superior HMD
Though the last I heard, it can only jsut about beat an F-16 in a dogfight.
My overall point is that take away stealth, what is actually left underneath?
The most advanced multirole fighter that has ever existed.
That is also VSTOL capable.
I love it but the Royal navy at this point would have been better off retiring Gr.9 and 7 and upgrading the FA.2 with the Frs.2 wing 408 engine, and giving it ALARM and a Tpod
Would have saved so much money considering we payed so much for F-35 weapons integration that the US still hasn’t finished.
More than enough to annihilate an entire armored column when its loaded with GBU-53/Spice 250 racks.
This question has been asked so many times online as a sort of gotcha against the F-35. And the answer has always been the same. Because you’d end up spending more money. With the F-15E, you need some CAP escort, some SEAD to go along with it, probably some stealth fighters for deep strikes, and so on. So when you’re sending it somewhere where it would face a decent opponent, you need a whole lot of other squadrons coming alongside it and all the maintenance, fuel, etc. It’s expensive and a logistical nightmare.
With only 1 F-35 Squadron, you can do all of these missions progressively, ranging from deep CAS in stealth configuration to radar hunting, to CAP, to heavy CAS once the AA is dead.
Can someone in short tell me If F-22 is better, worse or equal to Rafale and Eurofighter in dogfight?