President Zelenskyy in Sweden today: Ukraine plans to buy 100-150 JAS-39 Gripen E fighters. Certainly a positive sign for the post-war prospects of the Ukrainian Air Force. Great EW suite, modern AESA radar, Meteor missile compatible.

But, it doesn't help win the current war.

Thermal signature reduction padded covers... makes them harder to spot using IR in cover. Should have been clearer on that in the text - sorry!

Notable that many of the F-15s and F-16s in #IAF footage - supposedly from last night - are carrying 2000lb GBU-31(V)1 JDAMs. Suggests Israel has established sufficient control of the air to operate non-stealth aircraft directly over Iranian targets without relying on standoff weapons like Rampage

V interesting slide posted by Gen Allvin (USAF Chief of Staff) on X just now:

Very aggressive purported in-service dates for F-47 and CCAs (likely stretching the term 'operational'), and apparent confirmation of long assumed 1000NMi+ combat radius for F-47 and interesting 700NMi+ target for CCAs...

The F-35’s capabilities vs Russian air defences also cannot currently be replaced or replicated with other platforms.

For Germany it’s also worth remembering that the F-35 was bought for nuclear DCA role with US supplied B61 Mod 12 so 100% dependent on US whatever the aircraft.

On F-35 fears, I get it - there is real dependency.
But if all your targeting capacity, BLOS comms, penetrating/orbital ISR and the munitions you assume you’d fight with in a war are US-provided; then dependency on the US for MDFs and ALIS/ODIN for F-35 isn’t your main problem.

And another angle (though I’m slightly suspicious of this image as for some reason it doesn’t look quite right to my eyes).
Shows a third engine intake and rather bulbous upper fuselage

Clearer picture, showing the very unusual trailing edge control surfaces. Likely designed to sit as flush as possible for lower RCS at higher speeds when in stable flight

Fascinating that the PLAAF/CCP have chosen to fly this prototype in daylight now…
I’d be cautious about attributing it as China’s NGAD-equivalent 6th gen fighter though. I suspect more likely to be the 5th Gen regional bomber/strike fighter project sometimes called J/H-XX

Some recent fighter order costs in Europe:

Germany 38 T4 Eurofighter: €5.5bn or €144.7m each
Italy 24 T4 Eurofighter: €7.5bn or €312.5m each
France 42 Rafale F4R: >€5bn or ~€120m each
Greece 18 Rafale €2.3bn or €128m each
Finland 64 F-35A: $9.4bn or $147m each
Romania 32 F-35A: $7.2bn or $225m each

Impressive shot of the PLANAF's relatively new J-15D variant.

The PLA Navy's version of the EA-18G Growler (2nd photo); with four external jamming pods and two extended wingtip pod/receiver arrays. Likely v high power output potential given the Flanker baseline.

Credit to Kelvin Wong for the photo

I'm frankly astonished that Europe's air forces (including the RAF) are still not taking Suppression and Destruction of Enemy Air Defences (SEAD/DEAD) as their No.1 priority

If Putin believes we can roll back the IADS, he won't risk direct aggression. If he doesn't, then he might - it's that simple