My back-channel connections (read: FReepers who know these things) tell me the T-50 is a bad imitation of the F-22 and is burdened with a bad weight-to-thrust ratio.
Or so I have heard...
sure, just scrap the F35 over a plane that has logged less than an hour of flight time so Australia can buy the F22 instead of the F35 even though it has already had to scale back it’s plan to purchase 100 F35s over the recession. The more I think about it, I’ll be shocked if Russia ever produces the T50 let alone exports it to anyone. I think they saw the F22/F35 friction and are trying to exacerbate it.
I say we greatly scale back our nation’s monthly welfare extortion payments and use those savings to produce PLENTY of F-22’s *AND* F-35’s - along with the ordinance to go with them.