Chad Irby wrote:

:In article ,
: Fred J. McCall wrote:
:
: Chad Irby wrote:
:
: :I'm just wondering why you think it's so outrageous to expect a much
: :newer fighter to have much better fuel efficiency...
:
: I don't think that. I also don't have a diseased faith in simulation,
: since I used to write them.
:
:But you should have a fairly concrete faith in aerodynamics, especially
:with an airframe that's already *flying*.

Final F-35C aircraft are already flying? Since when?

: You can predict lots of things, but you
: don't really know what's going to happen until you put a few thousand
: hours on an airframe under operational stresses.
:
:You don't need a few thousand hours on an airframe to figure out the
:fuel usage. It's a fairly simple thing called "math."

Yes, but what you CAN'T predict is what you're going to have to change
to make the thing actually work in real service. Those changes will
impact many things, including range, payload, fuel load, etc. It's a
fairly simple thing called "reality".

To listen to you, test flight programs are totally unnecessary.
Sorry, but our present reality seems to strongly indicate otherwise.

--
"Some people get lost in thought because it's such unfamiliar
territory."
--G. Behn