Interesting performance ! http://bobandsylvia.com/FIGHTER.htm

Impressive! Makes for a great airshow! I wonder how it would do against the Raptor in combat? Doesnt look very stealthy like the Raptor which may be its disadvantage?

It ain't the plane it's the pilot.

Yes, it's great in an airshow but just what percentage of pilots assigned to fly it will be able to fly it through those manuevers?

Yeah, it's manueverable, but can it avoid the destruction cone of the warhead of an AAMRAM?

Also consider what design method was used to prevent compressor stalls during the retrograde manuevers?

I'm thinking cheap simple, stupid, but HIGHLY effective methods were used... in otherwords the engine have a fairly high internal rotational inertia, thus they probably don't respond all that quickly to changes in throttle settings
Though with vectoring this is less than crucial...

Frankly I think a better aircraft than the raptor can be built
And my main theoretical issue with the reptor is restricting it to purely inernal weapons load, meaning it's that much sooner until you are "winchester" in a "Target rich environment"

Yeah, I know the internal weapos storage is necissary, so is colonoscopy, but that doesn't mean you have to like either...

Being forced to leave the fight because you are all out of boolits is almost as bad as leaving the fight via Martin-Baker, though admittedly far better than a having a notification team visiting your next of kin....

AD