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#26 2026-01-03 08:22:37

RobertDyck
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From: Winnipeg, Canada
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Re: Fighter jets: F-35 vs Gripen vs Avro Arrow

News this morning: the US has invaded Venezuela. Chinook helicopters dropped bombs. President Maduro has been captured by US troops. I thought one reason Trump was elected was to get the US out of foreign wars. WTF?

At the beginning of World War 2, Canada had about the same number of navy ships as it does today. Just before the war started in September 1939, Canada ordered a few new navy ships from Britain. But once invasion of Poland happened, Britain cancelled Canada's orders, focused their shipyard to build ships for their own navy. Canada then not just increased its navy, but built an entire fleet. Quickly. In less than 2 years, Canada had a fleet. Built in Canadian shipyards. At the end of WW2, Canada had the 3rd largest navy in the world. Only behind the US and UK. Yes, Canada has capacity to do that again, but doesn't want to. Canada is trying to avoid major wars.

From 1776 until today, the United States is 249½ years old. July 4th of this year will be the 250th anniversary. In all that time, the US has not been at war for less than 20 years. It's 15-17 years, depending whether you count smaller conflicts. That's 230 years of continuous war. Canada does not believe in war. Canada acted to defend it's allies, both Britain and France, when World War 1 started. Initially by providing supplies rather than troops. The US didn't get involved until 1917. Canada acted to defend Britain and France again in World War 2, again initially by providing supplies, but starting in September 1939. The US didn't get involved until after Pearl Harbor, December 1942. After 9/11, Canada sent troops to Afghanistan to defend the US. But Canada is not going to get involved with every conflict on the planet. Canada has allies, Canada treats its alliances seriously, but that means defending our allies from attack. It does not mean getting involved in every petty conflict in 3rd world countries.

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#27 2026-01-03 14:16:49

kbd512
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Re: Fighter jets: F-35 vs Gripen vs Avro Arrow

RobertDyck,

I have always said the F-35 is not the right fighter jet for Canada. From the time the F-35 was first completed and offered to America's allies. I have never dithered.

The basis for your conclusion is not connected to plainly observable reality.  Canada hasn't taken any concrete actions to counter the threats posed by modern air defense systems and tactical fighters with survivable solutions.  Canada's fighter fleet received its last major upgrades 20 years ago.  Call that whatever you like.

If Canada had simply been "gifted" F-22s, your Air Force would go bankrupt trying to maintain them.  You incessantly complain about the cost of the F-35 without acknowledging the F-22's much higher costs per flight hour.  F-22s are dramatically more expensive to operate, in comparison to any other fighter jet in existence.  You also refused to acknowledge that the F-35 outperformed the Gripen, Rafale, and Typhoon in actual mission performance, according to your own government.  There are more F-35s which have actually been produced to date than all Gripens, Rafales, and Typhoons combined.  F-35s are both less expensive and more capable than the rest of those jets.

The F-35 is better than a Super Hornet in terms of acceleration when it comes to regaining energy lost to maneuvering, it turns better than the F-16 unless said F-16 is unarmed, and it points the nose better than any F-16 during high-AoA maneuvering thanks to those barn door tail fins that are as large as the wings are on some of those other fighters.  Kinematically, for people who still think about fighter capabilities in such terms, the F-35 is every bit as good as those earlier generations of jets when both jets are equally loaded.  A Rafale pilot even said that his latest and greatest copy was, at best, "evenly matched" in a dogfight with his F-35 opponent.  The F-35 does all of that with a stealth-optimized airframe.  None of those other fighter jets have stealth or electronic warfare capabilities in the same class as the F-35.

On top of all that, the F-35 will fly farther on internal fuel alone than anything except a Su-35, Su-57, or F-15EX.  The F-22, F-15E, and J-20 all fall short, especially against the C model.  If the F-35 receives its scheduled engine upgrades, then it will exceed the unrefueled range of everything except a Su-35 in what is essentially a ferry flight configuration, and no Su-35 that heavily laden with fuel will still turn like the F-35.  Whether burner is engaged or not, the drag rise associated with supersonic flight means jets with "supercruise" capability are burning significantly more fuel to do it, period.  In a tactical fighter sized airframe, supercruising is an altogether rather pointless capability if you intend to patrol far from your base and still make it home without on-station aerial refueling assets.  Aerodynamic drag vs Mach number and basic fuel burn rate math is what it is.  Take that argument up with nature.  Let us know if you figure out how to overturn basic flight physics.

Lastly, no other tactical fighter provides F-35 equivalent situational awareness and sensor fusion.  When the APG-85 radar is installed in the upcoming blocks, it will also greatly exceed the detection and tracking capabilities of the F-22's APG-77.  At that point, the F-22, Su-57, and possibly the J-20 with upgraded engines have a slight kinematic performance advantage in a dogfight, but that's about it.  The latest F-35 radar and electronics are 20 years newer than those installed into the F-22.  For a jet that supposedly doesn't do anything well, all those other fighters seem to have a very tough time matching its mix of capabilities.

Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery.  Every new tactical fighter being developed looks like a F-22 or F-35 or one of the various airframe derivatives proposed by our defense contractor primes long ago, but never pursued.  There's probably a reason for that beyond the trite and very tiresome "everyone but me is dumb" explanation.  Either all aerospace defense contractors across all major world powers don't know what they're doing when they're designing F-35 clones, or they know exactly why they opted for their design decisions because they know what right looks like, even if someone like you doesn't.

If you're never going to join the 21st century by fielding modern tactical fighters, then your aviation fleet is relegated to a purely defensive role that (hopefully) never encounters modern air defense systems or other modern tactical fighters.

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#28 2026-01-03 14:43:53

kbd512
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Re: Fighter jets: F-35 vs Gripen vs Avro Arrow

RobertDyck,

"Nagurskoye or Kotelny Island or Rogachevo"? Hmm. Never heard of them.

That doesn't surprise me in the slightest.  You have a habit of glossing over the important little details such as where a Russian sneak attack using strategic bombers would actually come from.

The US is dependent on Canadian radar to detect and track any Russian bombers trying to fly over the North Pole and over Canada to reach the US.

You actually think the US primarily relies upon surface radar stations located in the US or Canada as our primary means of detecting the movements of Russian strategic assets?

Tell me what you think the NRO does.

The radars in Canada are part of a layered air defense system.  They are no longer the primary or even secondary early warning systems used in the layered air defense approach taken by NORAD.

There are at least 5 separate layers to NORAD:
1. Satellites that monitor enemy ground movements and airspace from orbit, now in real-time
2. Satellites that monitor friendly ground movements and airspace from orbit, now in real-time
3. Radars and EO/IR sensors to observe enemy and friendly air space from the ground and air- the radars in Canada are part of this layer
4. Air defense system radars and missile batteries- this layer includes multiple overlapping layers of missile interception capabilities
5. Air defense tactical fighters to mop up leakers

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#29 2026-01-03 15:07:53

kbd512
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Re: Fighter jets: F-35 vs Gripen vs Avro Arrow

RobertDyck,

I thought one reason Trump was elected was to get the US out of foreign wars.

I realize the nuance will be lost on you, but the quiet part nobody is saying out loud is that Maduro was acting as an enabler for Russian and Chinese forces, primarily China, seeking to use our backyard as a staging ground for attacks against the US.  China is the real reason America made such a show of force over the Maduro situation.  If you didn't already know this, that's because you weren't paying attention.  Stop taking every politically-motivated thing you read in the news at face value.

In less than 2 years, Canada had a fleet. Built in Canadian shipyards. At the end of WW2, Canada had the 3rd largest navy in the world. Only behind the US and UK. Yes, Canada has capacity to do that again, but doesn't want to.

Talk is cheap.  Canada never built an aircraft carrier.  The largest surface combatant ever built in Canada, as opposed to being operated by Canada, is their new River class destroyer, at 7,950t full load.  Those ships use Lockheed-Martin's Aegis Combat System, SPY-7 radars, Standard Missiles, and Tomahawks.  They also include propulsive motors built by GE and ASW helicopters built by Sikorsky.

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#30 2026-01-03 19:40:10

RobertDyck
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Re: Fighter jets: F-35 vs Gripen vs Avro Arrow

Wikipedia: List of Royal Canadian Navy ships of the Second World War
2 Escort carriers (built in the US)
2 Light cruisers (UK built)
3 Armed merchant cruiser (UK built, converted in Canada)
43 Destroyers (17 built in US, others built in UK)
69 Frigates (you figure out where built)
123 Corvettes
95 Minesweepers
79 Motor launches
30 Motor torpedo boats
8 Armed trawlers
17 Armed yachts
48 Landing craft
2 Submarines (surrendered and recommissioned U-boats)

Auxilaries:
3 Accommodation vessels
9 Anti-submarine target towing vessels
1 Cable layer
8 Coil skids
13 Examination vessels
24 Gate vessels
367 Harbour craft
1 Hospital ship
2 Mine laying vessels
16 Minesweeper auxiliaries
2 Mobile deperming craft
59 Patrol boats
1 Survey vessel
12 Support ships
3 Tenders
88 Tugboats
2 W/T Calibration vessels
16 Other

43 Depot ships, also known as stone frigates or accommodation ships

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#31 2026-01-03 19:51:36

RobertDyck
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Re: Fighter jets: F-35 vs Gripen vs Avro Arrow

kbd512 wrote:

Canada never built an aircraft carrier.

You say that as if it's a bad thing.

Canada invented the snowplow. Canada created the Polio vaccine.
Canada invented: garbage bag, pager, walkie-talkie, Java programming language, 56k modem, IMAX, Instant Replay (Broadcasting), Robertson screw, paint roller, snow blower, alkaline battery, insulin, artificial pacemaker, pablum, Five-Pin bowling, Trivial Pursuit, Wonderbra

Others. Wikipedia: List of Canadian inventions, innovations, and discoveries

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#32 2026-01-03 21:22:26

kbd512
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Re: Fighter jets: F-35 vs Gripen vs Avro Arrow

RobertDyck,

You say that as if it's a bad thing.

It is bad if you're fighting another nation that has real air power.

Canada invented the snowplow.

The snow plow invented by J.W. Elliot was not the first deliberately designed snow plow, although I think it was the first rotary snow plow.  The first motorized snow plow trucks were built and operated in New York City, IIRC.

Canada created the Polio vaccine.

Dr. Jonas Salk's research team created and tested the first successful Polio vaccine in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, after work done before WWII killed or paralyzed most of its recipients.  Canada, amongst many other countries, used the Salk vaccine.  Sabin worked on dead and live polio vaccines.  Hilary Koprowski demonstrated the first successful live vaccine.  IIRC, Herald Cox also worked on live vaccines.

The first walkie-talkie was created from work done by three different men.  IIRC, there is merit to the claim that Canadians developed the first aircraft wireless sets.

I'll give Java to Canada, since that was mostly the original work product of one man.  So far as I'm aware, no fighter jet in the world uses Java for primary flight control or engine control.  Everything is written in C or assembly.

The first modems were invented by Bell Labs for SAGE, which was / is a part of NORAD.

Alkaline batteries were invented in the late 1890s.  The first commercialized versions were the work product of a Canadian inventor.

Insulin and pacemakers I'll give to Canada.

The "wonderbra"?  Squeezing a woman's breasts together has what, exactly, to do with fighter jets or war or inventiveness?  Women were squeezing their breasts together long before the wonderbra existed.

Ah... Trivial Pursuit.  Every argument you've provided against procuring the F-35 thus far is the direct result of this game.

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#33 Yesterday 13:31:06

kbd512
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Re: Fighter jets: F-35 vs Gripen vs Avro Arrow

In the amount of time that the CF-18 has been in-service with the RCAF, if Canadian Arrow enthusiasts were so hard core about producing an indigenous airframe and engine combination, then why did they not form their own design team to do what Stavatti Aerospace did in America regarding their ideas for A-10 and stealthy trainer replacements / light fighters?

Stavatti SM-31 Stilleto

STAVATTI_SM-31_STILETTO_T-X_BANNER_1004-1.jpg

SM-31T-STILETTO-UJTS-LINECARD-USN-NOV-2025-scaled.jpg

SM-31S-STILETTO-COST-PER-FLIGHT-HOUR-AUG-2025-1.jpg

$23M flyaway cost with the Honeywell F125 engine, $3.4K to $4.4K cost per flight hour.

CF-18s presently cost $15,000 to $20,000 per flight hour.

Canada would not be competing with the US military for design requirements or orders, so Canada could pay for whichever design elements are most suitable for their use cases.

2 squadrons of F-35s would cost the same amount to purchase as 7 squadrons of these Stilleto light fighters.  Canada could field light fighters equipped with Raytheon's Peregrine missiles to take down bomber-sized targets at around 100 miles from the launching interceptor.  It has an internal autocannon, just like all other USAF fighters, and Sidewinders can be fitted to wingtip rails.  Airframe shaping features reduce RCS the most, so Canada could opt for shaping only, without any eye-wateringly expensive RAM coatings to continuously maintain, as would be the case for the F-22 and F-35.

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#34 Yesterday 14:33:17

RobertDyck
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Re: Fighter jets: F-35 vs Gripen vs Avro Arrow

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If you maintain your military with a war budget, everything looks like war.

Your country is supposed to scale back military in time of peace. The US failed to do so. To be fair, the US did try, but US admirals strongly objected. Wikipedia: Revolt of the Admirals

But everything you have written tells me you won't understand this. Again, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Ironically, Russia is going on a rampage. Now is the time to scale up military again, and stop Russia before it becomes World War 3. But President Trump is a scammer, who used unscrupulous business practices to defraud people. Now he is using the position of President to extort bribes. Example: the 747 he demanded from UAE. Trump refuses to do what's necessary to stop Russia.

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#35 Yesterday 14:47:42

tahanson43206
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Re: Fighter jets: F-35 vs Gripen vs Avro Arrow

Fighter jets: F-35 vs Gripen vs Avro Arrow....

Find the best solution for Canada given uncertainty about the global threats and many other factors.  Do Something! Even if it's wrong.   The US is showing that model all the time. 

kgd512 suggested a lot of small fighters able to take down bombers.  He presented what looked to me like reasonable points. What is wrong with those points?

Or (more likely) what do you like about them?

How can you persuade your countrymen to spend their limited funds most wisely?

(th)

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#36 Yesterday 16:41:43

kbd512
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Re: Fighter jets: F-35 vs Gripen vs Avro Arrow

RobertDyck,

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. If you maintain your military with a war budget, everything looks like war.

When all you have is an ignorance-based perception of procurement timelines and logistics, every military expenditure looks like an unnecessary extravagance.  When your beliefs about what an enemy will do, when they think they can get away with it, fails to account for their malevolent behavior, the only possible end result is a catastrophe resulting in extreme loss of life and confidence in a government's ability to protect its own people.  The US learned from Pearl Harbor to never be taken by surprise.  After the Cold War ended, that lesson was long since forgotten, yet Russia still existed to re-teach the forgotten lesson.  I don't expect you to understand this, either.

Both America and the European Union, despite both having economies vastly larger than Russia, still cannot match Russia's monthly artillery shell output after 4 years of fighting in Ukraine.  None of the fancy long range supersonic and hypersonic weapons or stealthy cruise missiles have meaningfully altered the course of that war, despite hundreds or thousands fired by both sides.  Drones are a constant battlefield threat to infantry and vehicles, but haven't prevented the current trench warfare stalemate.  Neither side has been able to establish air superiority, so it has not been possible for either side to bring the war to a decisive conclusion.  This is a stark contrast to the first Iraq War, which was over with inside of a month, because one side was able to establish air superiority, which it used to destroy every last piece of Iraqi military equipment more sophisticated than an infantry rifle or anti-tank rocket launcher.

America wasn't even involved in WWII for 4 years.  None of these clown shows masquerading as governments are going to protect your nation from anything.  They operate on wishful thinking and purposeful ignorance of enemy actions.  They lack the intellectual capacity to even comprehend how to respond with any sense of urgency to an actual military attack.  The German Army spent months goofing off with internal travel permits across their own country to transport Leopards to Ukraine.  If you were relying on those people to gear-up for wartime production and to move military equipment expeditiously to where it's required, then your country would look like Ukraine does today long before they'd have their act together.

Do you recall how long it took for European economies to recover from WWII?

Full repair of infrastructure took 20 to 30 years, which means the Cold War was already on the back end before complete recovery took effect.  That's essentially a generation of young working age people who were forced to pay for the "failure of imagination" of their forefathers- people who tried to "wish away" what was so plainly happening in front of their very eyes, in other words people like you.

Ironically, Russia is going on a rampage. Now is the time to scale up military again, and stop Russia before it becomes World War 3. But President Trump is a scammer, who used unscrupulous business practices to defraud people.

If you actually believe that, then why is the Canadian defense industry still dithering?

Why hasn't Canadian artillery shell production already surpassed American artillery shell production?

Where is all the action on the part of Canada that backs up you running your mouth non-stop?

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#37 Yesterday 17:17:50

RobertDyck
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Re: Fighter jets: F-35 vs Gripen vs Avro Arrow

tahanson43206: The problem is Canada is really big. I mean, really big. Canada has the 2nd largest land area of any country in the world, second only to Russia. Canada as even larger than the US. Canada has 41,575,585 people (Statistics Canada estimate, as of October 1, 2025. The US has 343,061,853 as of today, according to US Census Bureau. That means US has 8.25 times the number of people. But most people in Canada live along the southern border. In fact, 70% of Canadians live south of the 49th parallel. Yes, the 49th parallel is the border in western provinces/states, but Canada has a southern portion along the northern shores of the Great Lakes, including southern Ontario, southern Quebec, Nova Scotia, Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and most of Newfoundland. Canada's north is sparsely populated.

kbd512 doesn't want to deal with just how sparsely populated the north really is. Canada needs a fighter jet that can travel great distances, intercept Russian bombers, and shoot them down. Russian bombers have radar that can see an F-35 fighter. Radar may not be able to give location precisely enough for a missile to intercept, but it's enough for a Russian bomber to avoid the fighter, stay out of missile range. Russian bombers can fly faster than an F-35. An F-35 can fly faster than a Tu-95 Bear bomber if using after burner, but that burns through fuel so fast it will reach bingo fuel before reaching target. "Bingo" means just enough fuel to return to the nearest base to land.

Gripen can be scattered over the land with a single aircraft here, a single one there. And able to handle arctic cold. With minimal maintenance. Gripen-E has higher maximum speed, higher cruise speed, lower operational cost. It can intercept Russian bombers.

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#38 Yesterday 18:47:26

kbd512
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Re: Fighter jets: F-35 vs Gripen vs Avro Arrow

RobertDyck,

Canada needs a fighter jet that can travel great distances, intercept Russian bombers, and shoot them down.

There is no other single-engine fighter jet that can travel farther than the F-35 on internal fuel, with weapons.

This is not even debatable.  It's been demonstrated in combat by Israeli F-35s flying SEAD missions into Iran.  They flew over 1,300 miles to the target, then flew 1,300 miles home.  They were in the air for over 4 hours, flying at cruise speed, at high altitude.

Anyone who thinks otherwise needs a map and a calculator.

Russian bombers have radar that can see an F-35 fighter.

The Tu-95 can see the F-35 on its radar, but not the Gripen-E?

S-300 batteries have radars about the same size as the Tu-95's wingspan, yet they couldn't do anything to the F-35s that wiped them off the map.

Make it make sense.

Russian bombers can fly faster than an F-35.

Tu-95s top speed is 575mph and it's cruising speed is 440mph.
Tu-160s cruising speed is 600mph, and at 40,000ft it can hit 1,380mph.
F-35A's cruising speed at 35,000ft is 690mph, and top speed is 1,200mph.
Gripen-E's cruising speed at altitude is 796mph (Mach 1.2 at 35,000ft), and top speed is 1,300mph.

All this mental masturbation is related to 80mph to 180mph worth of "speed difference" at the altitudes where all of the aircraft involved can fly fastest, if it doesn't matter whether or not any of them have enough fuel to make it home.  Mind you, no Gripen-E is ever going to hit 1,300mph with the external fuel and missiles to make both its range and weapons loadout equivalent to the F-35.

The entire "un-reality" of this fictitious air defense scenario is so laughably absurd that nobody who has been a fighter pilot or an air defense system operator would ever believe it.

Gripen can be scattered over the land with a single aircraft here, a single one there.

Maybe.

And able to handle arctic cold.

One would hope.

With minimal maintenance.

Actual data disagrees with your assertion here.

F-35As incur fewer maintenance hours per flight hour, according to real world data across a fleet of more airframes than total Gripen production.

F-35A: 4.8MMH/FH <- hard data from entire fighter wings of F-35As

Gripen-E is "aiming for" 5-10MMH/FH <- aspirational

F-35As are already beating Gripen-E MMH/FH projections.

Gripen-E has higher maximum speed,

In airshow configuration.

Airshows don't involve hanging multi-hundred gallon fuel tanks and ordnance on the wings.

higher cruise speed,

Once again, in airshow configuration.

Aerodynamic drag slows things down real quick.  The speed delta between the F-35A and a "supercruising" Gripen-E is only 100mph.  That means it's cruising speed is 13.3% faster than the F-35A.  Ask a fighter pilot if you can increase drag by 10-15%, keep thrust the same, and still fly at the same speed.

lower operational cost.

One would hope, since Gripen-E has lesser combat capabilities than the F-35, but their cost accounting is also very creative.

It can intercept Russian bombers.

If CF-188s are already intercepting Russian bombers, then so can the F-35.

You seem to labor under the assumption that the Gripen can do all of the things on its spec sheet, all at the same time.  It cannot because basic flight physics says it cannot.

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#39 Today 00:52:05

kbd512
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Re: Fighter jets: F-35 vs Gripen vs Avro Arrow

If both range and supersonic speed are all-important, then why was the F-111 never adopted by Canada?

74bb6d1cd523fe2adbd8b72b2ea251b6

The TF-30 engines are significantly larger in diameter than the F-135, so a pair of F-135 engines should make it climb like the F-14D.  I've never heard anyone claim that a Tomcat couldn't climb well.  F-111F's initial climb rate was almost 26,000fpm, so increasing thrust by 71% should provide a 45,000fpm initial climb rate at 100,000lb MTOW, same as the F-14D.  It'll reach 40,000ft in less than 3 minutes.  At a realistic combat weight with full internal fuel and weapons only, it'll "only" climb as fast as any existing fighter.

While this proposed long range interceptor technically has sufficient thrust to hit Mach 3 at altitude, we'll ignore such fanciful nonsense in favor of an airframe that still maneuvers like a world class air superiority fighter because we don't have to make the entire airframe out of refractory metals to cope with Mach 3 heating.

The F-14D carried 2,916 gallons of internal and external fuel.  In combat configuration, F-14D was limited to 6.5g, whereas the F-111F was limited to 7.33g.  Using modern high strength steels and composites, a modernized F-111 would be an 8g capable plane with full internal fuel and air-to-air weapons loadout.  Empty weight would be nearly identical to the F-14D.  A notional CF-111 Thrust-to-Weight Ratio (TWR) with 5,043 gallons of internal fuel vs max fuel, 8X internal Peregrine, and 500lbs for the crew would put it at 1.08:1, which is sufficient to accelerate in a vertical climb after takeoff.

This notional CF-111 would be equipped with 2X F-135 engines, regular ejection seats for the crew vs the historical crew escape pod, and 8X Peregrines in the internal weapons bay.  The wing and fuselage skins would be CFRP, same as all other modern fighters.  This puts empty weight at the same as the F-14D Tomcat.

Empty Weight TWR Chart
CF-111: 1.97:1
Typhoon: 1.67:1
F-15EX (no CFTs): 1.66:1
F-22A: 1.62:1
Su-57: 1.57:1
Rafale-C: 1.57:1
Su-35S: 1.53:1
F-35A: 1.47:1
Gripen-E: 0.94-1:1

CF-111 combines "all the thrust" with "all the fuel", because you're not going anywhere without fuel.  It beats every modern and historical tactical fighter in existence at the TWR game by a considerable margin.

Did I mention that the CF-111's nose would have more space for a larger AESA radar array than any other tactical fighter?

The APG-77 X-band radar supposedly has a detection range of about 510km against a Tu-95, so a 50% larger and more modern / powerful array ought to be able to detect any Russian bomber that the radar has line-of-sight to.

However, more modern fighter jet radars like the APG-81 and APG-85 trade some detection range in favor of image detail:
capella-layover.jpeg

UC Berkeley - Accelerating Ukraine Intelligence Analysis with Computer Vision on Synthetic Aperture Radar Imagery

Imagine having a fighter jet radar capable of providing very high resolution video imagery of inbound enemy aircraft, so that your interceptor pilot knows exactly what kind of aircraft he's shooting at, rather than simply seeing a "blip" on his screen.

F-22 pilots still see "blips" on their radar, with some limited imaging capability against ground targets, whereas F-35 pilots see this on their radar:
yRQxA9oJ.jpg

The F-22 pilot can technically "see" at greater distances because its radar operates in a lower frequency band, but has only limited information about what the radar is actually "looking at".

The F-35 pilot can "see" an image-correlated overlay of the combination of their imaging radar with IR and UV.  It's a black-and-white motion picture of threats, as-if the pilot has "eyes" in the X-band, IR band, and UV band, all at the same time.  The computers backing these sensors also automatically classify imagery targets as potential threats vs friendlies.  A Block IV F-35 pilot will "see" an even higher resolution correlated sensor imagery overlay.  When APG-85 rolls in, they will see very high-definition / very high-frame rate correlated sensor imagery.  This data can then be "shared" with friendly air defense assets, so that the platform which detects the target doesn't also have to fire at the target.  This capability is useful when your jet is out of missiles, but your wingman or a nearby AEGIS-equipped ship is not.

Knowing exactly what your sensors have detected is very important, because it tells you whether or not you're about to shoot down a Tu-160 vs an Airbus passenger jet.

This proposal is all the thrust that a pair of the most powerful fighter jet engines in the world can provide, plus more internal fuel to keep them running than any other tactical fighter in existence, plus more radar imaging detail than anything the Russians or Chinese have in a combat jet.  That seems like a better than average proposition for finding and shooting down enemy bombers.

The downside, of course, will be the operating cost.  Big fancy fighter jets cost big money, so there will be fewer of them.

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