Even though I just posted the following material in another thread under "military" I think that it also has a lot of relevance here. Sadly, Australia was one of those gullible countries who was hoodwinked into buying this piece of scrapmetal.
A few months back I attended the International Avalon Air Show in Melbourne Australia where I had a rather interesting discussion with the Lockheed Martin representative (with photos) regarding the F-35 that Australia has unwisely decided to buy.
I raised the point that from what I am reading that all these sources are saying that the Russian Sukhoi T-50 will outclass the F-35 in virtually every category. Now I have no qualms with Russia having these aircraft but I am certainly concerned that Russia will be supplying Indonesia with about 50 T-50's.
As hard as I tried, I could not get the Lockheed Martin rep to say that the F-35 would outclass the Sukhoi T-50. I said that my understanding is that if Australia were to send our 50 F-35's against 50 Indonesian Sukhoi T-50's that it would be unlikely that any of our planes would make it back home where he had no answer.
His final remark was "Well, we've got Australia's back with our F-22's so if you get in trouble we'll be there". My reply was, that's great, so when we need you in a hurry you will somehow send over your F-22's to help us and don't forget it's a long way from the US to Australia.
Essentially, once the US replaces their current stock of fighters with the already out of date F-35 that the US will not have an effective air cover against those countries that will be equipped with the Russian T-50.
Not true. Air supremacy is a matter of far more than fighter spec versus fighter spec.
Actual pilot effectiveness counts tremendously, and few pilots in the world get the training of American pilots (although Indians come pretty close, and are better than Russians or Chinese). Aussies are absolutely crazy-good...they all think they're Crocodile Dundee, and can back it up.
Then there are the other factors, such as AWACS air control, effective SEAD, effective maintenance that can keep more planes in the air and turn them faster, better air-to-ground capability that keeps enemy aircraft from launching in the first place, better manufacturing that keeps planes in the air longer and operating better, better electronics for BVR attacks (when you can kill him before he even knows you're out there...other plane characteristics are irrelevant), more effective defensive systems, et cetera.
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