Not at all. I'm saying they should consider themselves lucky the USA didn't build it for themselves alone, and say "who wants it?!?!"
I especially think myself lucky that Tank-Ace condescends to talk to us lowly Europeans.
When it comes to employing "guerrilla tactics" by any nation with aircraft, no aircraft is better suited right now to get that job done then the f-35 & F22.
As I already said any arms race is perpetual and it's not so much what is available now which is the issue. A pure interceptor designed and built with the latest stealth solutions would cost a lot less also because the design would be uncluttered with compromise. It might be within the reach of more modestly funded nations by now. The technology is public, even we can grasp enough to make a sound design, and in areas where we can't there are other resources. I believe the Chinese demonstrated this with 'their' new intake designs.
I meant first person, that was impressive nevertheless
Danny carries a 30-mm in a shoulder holster for personal protection.
Surprisingly enough the swing wing had only two real drawbacks and those are complexity and cost. When an airplane is built around the wing (I mean designed from the beginning to be variable geometry) like the F-14 was you really don't compromise internal space much. In both the Tomcat and Aardvark, the wing and wing mechanism is a flat structure that "sits" across the back of the plane. If you were to remove the entire system from the plane it essentially was a very broad but flat package so pretty space efficient.
You are centralising the stress though instead of distributing it. I think the Tomcat and F111 had a huge titanium alloy box structure to carry the pivots. There are also some very difficult issues to resolve when it comes to stealth too. But I do like the solution in principle. Very interesting what you say about the flaps and aspect ratio.
Was the wide spacing of the engines as big of a problem as they suggest in the Tomcat Mace? I've seen a nasty video of a lady pilot I believe it was, losing one engine on approach (I think it was) and ultimately crashing.
I'm not sure what you mean about the F-23 WRT to thrust vectoring. It had vectoring just like the 22. Overall, I think it's a great idea and it makes the plane more nimble (able to change directions or "point" more quickly) but it comes at a cost as well. I had a chance to see both the YF-22 and YF-23 together at Edwards during at the beginning of the fly-off between them. The YF-23 looked absolutely enormous compared to the 22 but some of that was the "V" tail and the fact it was painted black. I'd have sworn you could have played soccer on the back of the thing. Again, I don't have anything against things like thrust vectoring or post-stall maneuvering, I'd love to have every toy out there but I just question the tactical utility of such features for the majority of scenarios and cost.
No doubt you are privy to more information than I, but everything I've read says the YF-23 had non-vectoring nozzles. I really like the shape of the YF-23. If you are trying to understand stealth technology it is the perfect subject. Some very subtle solutions in that design.