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Excellent report. And good point on the fuel fraction: You can not really compare kinetic performances of a traditional fighter - which is designed to operate with external tanks - with the F-35 or Flanker (when's the last time you saw a photo of a Flanker With external tanks), which have the external tanks embedded in the fuselage.
Your average fighter has a fuel fraction around 0,3 in combat configuration wheras the F-35 and Flanker is about 0,4 - a huge difference.
So 50 percent "internal fuel" on a traditional fighter is much less - relatively speaking that - of,say, an F-35. A more fair comparison would be if the F-35 had perhaps 30-40 percent fuel in the same configuration. Did the math once, but don't have it at hand right now.
Best,
Bjørnar Bolsøy
May 23, 2013, 9:33:11 PM
Posted to The F-35 and the Infamous “Sustained G” Spec Change: Part 2