A1bill and LoneWoolf, I concur with the above.
The discussion about the claims made by LM, JPO and test polite has seen a distinct shift of positions as some of the old claims have started to emerge out of the archives. LM have wisely removed those claims from their website, but they live on in carefully rephrased statements, modified to
compatible, equal to or better, etc, which are still open to debate, especially as they now include caveats such as Gen 4 jets being "hogged up" vs F-35 carrying only internal weapons.
I am not criticising F-35 here, simply the arguments being fielded.
There was a very interesting post by a newcomer, glaaar, a few pages ago now, that raises some pertinent points, most of which went largely unnoticed (apart from the Arguments about WVR manoeuvre and some other stuff) in the fog of longbows, British nationalities and press reporting. I would commend a scan of it. If we don't want the F-35 to get into turning fights, the stuff about the longer range air-to-air battle should be relevant to any discussion of its capabilities.
The points I've been making for some time now are the ability to manoeuvre at range and to accelerate and climb for energy at launch and to defeat incoming aams without exposing areas of higher RCS.
http://www.pprune.org/military-aviat...ml#post9071284