@Buzzbomb said in Do we develop the F-35:
It is my opinion that developing the F-35 model is desirable and will be beneficial, maybe even necessary, to keep interest in BMS up for the foreseeable future.
However, it’ll have to be, just as with Falcon 4.0 in its original intent, the best representation of the F-35 that is possible with the limited non-classified data available. I’m sure I didn’t have to say that. Nobody here wants BMS to turn into War Thunder.
I fully agree with you above!
And I would like to add the following:
(for some like it or not) the F-35 is here to stay and is the future (and already is the present) so having the F-35 in BMS is IMO mandatory (even if only as an AI model for the time being) and even more so than the F-22 (afterall there are already much more F-35’s than F-22’s).
Having a playable/flyable F-35 is IMO a must because it’s not only the future (like I mentioned above) but being an extremely easy aircraft to fly and to fight in then I think it will bring more people to the genre (combat flight simulations). For instance everytime I watch videos from a real F-35 simulator I fell like it’s like flying a “realistic” flight simulator (like BMS or DCS) in arcade mode!
I think that what BMS currently lacks the most is having other aircraft (besides the F-16) with proper avionics and sensors (not a clone of the F-16 ones) but here I digress - IMO this is the only “big advantage” that DCS has over BMS.
Obviously I would like to have all the skills, time and honestly the will to help making that happen but unfortunately I don’t. As such I’m with the majority here (I think) and “rooting” for these things to actually happen.
BUT…to be quite honest about it, if I had to pick and choose between the F-35 being developed, or having the F-16V Block 70/72 developed, I’d pick the F-16V to be developed FIRST.
I get what you’re saying and here I also tend to agree.
But I would say that there are things that both the F-16V and the F-35 have in common or at least are very similar such as for example the AESA radar (the F-16V radar is based on the F-35 radar). So developing stuff for the F-16V would benefit a F-35 and/or vice-versa.