Military Aircraft Industry: The F-35 (JSF) Will Never Beat The Eurofighter - by David Cenciotti

Eurofighter pictured better in combat and cheaper than the JSF

The F-35 will be, when available, a very capable aircraft: its stealth design, extended range, internal carriage of stores and a variety of integrated sensors are definitely the ingredients for success in modern air-to-ground operations.

However, when time comes for air dominance, some other ingredients like thrust to weight ratio and wing loading tend to regulate the sky. And in that nothing comes close to a Eurofighter, except an F-22 which has very similar values. The F-35 thrust to weight ratio is way lower and its energy-maneuverability diagrams match those of the F/A-18, which is an excellent result for a single engine aircraft loaded with several thousand pounds of fuel and significant armament.

But it also means that starting from medium altitude and above, there is no story with a similarly loaded Eurofighter.

Eurofighter superb engine-airframe matching, in combination with it’s High Off-Bore-Sight armament supported by Helmet Cueing, has already and consistently proven winning against any agile fighter.

It is a fact that while the Typhoon can do most of the F-35 air-to-ground mission, vice versa the F-35 remains way far from a true swing role capability.

The Eurofighter has also flown actual combat mission in the Middle East which were regarded as very successful.

Cost of the operational Eurofighter is €87 million ($117 m) per plane   -  versus €124 million ($167 m estimated) for the still experimental F-35 JSF.

Read more: The F-35 Will Never Beat The Eurofighter - Business Insider

The Netherlands: Unrest In The Labor Party (PVDA) About JSF Purchase And Other Issues Could Topple Rutte Government

Wouter Bos

The former Dutch Vice-PM, Finance Minister and (PVDA) Labor party leader Wouter Bos, who writes a bi-weekly column for the well know Dutch Volkskrant newspaper  recently expressed his dismay in this column about the present Dutch Government of Mark Rutte's turn to what he called a "classical liberal American and ultimately marginalizing participative society".

"Even The King was allowed to announce that the established Dutch welfare state was going to make place for this so-called "participation society", said Bos 

Bos noted: "If the participation society as expressed in the speech from the throne on "Prinsjesdag" is not only the view of the  PM Rutte, but also that of  the Coalition (which includes the PVDA labor party), than the labor party must have gone through an ideological revolution... please tell me that this is not the case".

Given the unrest in the labor party on several actions undertaken by the government, including the recent decision by Defence Minister Jeanine Hennis and the government to abruptly finalize the year-long discussions about the JSF by unilaterally choosing to purchase 37 JSFs for the air-force at more than 5 billion euro's, has created a swell of protest not only in PVDA  circles, but around the country.

This could lead to a situation, if the present Labor party (PVDA) parliamentary leader Diederik Samsom does not succeed in holding his parliamentary fraction together, whereby several Labor party members would cast their votes in parliament with the opposition against the proposed government budget, and toppling the Rutte government. 

EU-Digest