Us F-35 Lightning II Grounded Again..!

[Chogy]

I dislike the entire notion of "generations." It is a stupid way to categorize jets, as if they are digital, and must fall neatly into a niche. Some jets have characteristics of more than one generation.

 

[500]

there is a bit of debate on that, when we got our first batch of F-16s we heralded the era of the 3rd gen planes.

more recently on in the special press, the F-16 was called 4th gen.

well, the Rafale and the EF2000 were in design and barely testing of prototypes when the F-16 and MiG 29 were already serving, they are not 5th Gen planes and I don't much care for 4++ and other marketing crap... to me (and you can obviously disagree) the f-16 is 3rd gen, the EF2000,Rafale is 4th Gen etc etc. . now if the F-35 is inferior aerodynamically and kinematicaly from a 3rd and 4th gen plane then to me there is an issue there...

F-16 is fly by wire aerodynamically unstable aircraft with high thrust/weight ratio. These are typical 4th gen qualities.

 

[amalakas]

I heard they have been cleared for flying again ...