Jindabyne,
The Harrier's a great old girl and with the current avionics is a very capable CAS platform. But she's always been a bit short of fuel/range, doesn't carry an awful lot of weapons (compared to say an F-15E or A-10), and is pretty vulnerable to surface/air threats - even legacy systems - so can only really operate in an almost totally permissive environment.
Typhoon is certainly a huge leap forward for us Europeans, but that's only because we've been soldiering on with Tornado for quite so long. The US have been flying jets that can pull lots of g above 40k', and that have more than one tv in the cockpit, since the mid 1970s. So we've caught up. It's a great fighter and pretty soon should be a good bomber too, but it's not terribly stealthy, obviously can't fly off carriers and its avionics/radar (while still good, and better than an F3 / GR4's) are what they are - specified and designed in the late 80s/early 90s.
Seeing as the US have designed F-35 to replace all their F-15/16s/A-10s, you'll obviously expect it to be a generation better than them. It's stealthy enough to tackle any modern threat system you care to mention - SAMs or fighters. But the caveat being that it won't be a world-beating close-in dogfighter - it'll shoot other fighters long before they see it. And it wasn't optimized for super-cruising, or hanging out up in the 50k'+ part of the sky. (which is why having Typhoon complements it very nicely) (and why the USAF still want their F-22s)
The sensors on board are absolutely mind-boggling in capability. While everyone today quotes the statistics of numbers of sorties saved by using LGBs over dumb bombs, you still need to put up an AWACS, a JSTARS, some jammers and HARM shooters etc, all of which need tankers. F-35 is one step further on. It will be able to go anywhere, find what it's looking for on its own, avoid the things it wants to avoid, neutralise the things that it can't avoid and kill the target that it wants to kill - with a pair or 4 jets, and then land back on a boat or small strip. When all the major threats have been neutralized you can bolt on the external pylons and have 8 A-G pylons + the gun and become an unstealthy bomb truck to support the troops (i.e. fulfil the legacy F-16/A-10/AV-8B role), but with a fully network-centric system - datalinking to the troops on the ground, AWACS & co, UAVs, 10 Downing Street, the RN boats etc.
Almost as important as its raw capability is the fact that when you buy an F-35 the airplane is part of an entire system. All the major components are constantly recording parameters about their health and predicted time to failure (in the same way as all the modern airliners do). The airplane is part of a world-wide logistics and training network and will datalink back to base with health reports so that any required spare parts are ordered and delivered before they're needed. It has been designed as an engineer's dream so, for example, the engine can be changed in 2 hours by a team of 4 guys working within the shadow of the aircraft. All this has been done to allow the frontline to generate unheard of levels of serviceability. No longer should you need a squadron of 12-16 Harriers/Tornados to generate 8 sorties a day. The theory is also that it's so simple to fly, and so reliable, that your attrition rates will be significantly lower than legacy platforms.
My 2p on the -B model vs -C model debate would be that the -B really isn't all that bad when it comes to range. It's spec is to go 450nm on internal fuel with internal weapons, which compares pretty favourably with anything we have right now on internal fuel with a couple of bombs and missiles! But I suppose people always look at the next model up in the car or PC magazine and want the one with the biggest numbers, even if we don't actually need all those other gucci features. I mean, how many targets can you destroy with a 2000lb JDAM that you're not going to wreck with a 1000lb JDAM?? While you can never have too much 'combat' fuel, the whole premise of this aircraft is that no one can see you so you won't be doing much turning and burning with the afterburner in. If we were to go for the -C we'd have to do some far-from-trivial work on the CVF, and figure out how to train all our pilots to fly legacy carrier approaches (until JPALS finally arrives and works unfailingly).
Obviously I'm a little too close to the project to be totally impartial, and it's early days, but I hope that gives you some idea. Also I challenge any pilot with a pulse to think that the cockpit and helmet are anything other than unbelievable. And it's very hard to believe that with the US buying 2500 of them that it will be anything other than a complete success, especially as it comes from the same stable as the F-16, F-117 and F-22. I can't remember the USMC Initial Operating Capablity date off the top of my head, but it's something very aggressive like 2014. By 2017/18 the RAF should have a fully functioning OCU and one fully operatonal frontline squadron.
Sorry it wasn't very succinct.
Regards,
Single Seat, Single Engine, The Only Way To Fly
Last edited by SSSETOWTF; 20th Jun 2008 at 02:23.