Yeah luckily for the F-4 it was still good enough that simply changing the doctrine + training for WVR combat and putting a gun back on (plus some other mid life updates that kept it relevant late into its life) was enough to overcome the broken technological crutch it was originally resting on. I don't have similar faith for the F-35 when push comes to shove...

Which might never happen, since we don't fight real wars against similarly equipped opponents anymore and the next major conflict involving world powers will mostly be a cyber war with crackers on all sides shutting down power stations, radar, communications infrastructure, and other electronics systems remotely — and rendering entire high-technology dependent armies inert with disruptions to military deployments and ATOs, all without firing a single bullet.

In any case, I wouldn't bet money that the J-31 or the J-20 are going to be world class or anything. But it would not surprise me if they were at least close enough in the most relevant performance metrics to the F-35 to give it a run for its money (and for much less money) when piloted by an equally competent driver. If there is one thing nobody can deny it's that the Chinese are very skilled at reverse engineering and making decent imitations of western technology for much cheaper. This could hold especially true with the F-35 given that 5TB of data on the program were stolen. And no, I am not naive enough to believe the DoD's and Lockheed's public declarations that nothing classified was leaked.

Really though, my comparing the F-35 to the J-31 was more to bash the former and call attention to just how bad it is (rather than to praise the latter) because I'm angered by how Lockheed Martin and their cronies in DoD acquisitions are getting away with ripping the American taxpayer off.

But all this talk about how cheap Chinese 'knockoffs' couldn't possibly compare to tech from the west is starting to sound like a broken record. Any time the west — which, as we all know, is just code word for white people (the desirable types, not those dirty eastern europeans or Slavs) + the token handful of colored people they have accepted into their fold — encounter a culture or ethnic group they consider inferior making technological progress or challenging a position whites felt they reigned supreme in, it's always the same routine. They are quick to belittle it and/or explain it away as not important. (This is just typical human arrogant bullshit, not a behavior unique to white people. It's just that they have been the ones mostly in power and at the top of the ladder in much of modern history… which some might argue validates their arrogance. but that's another topic)

'Made in Japan' used to be the butt end of many a bigoted joke. Now that pejorative has been passed on to China and people can only wish they could afford for their consumer electronics to be made in Japan. But people can't get over their prejudices and recognize that China indeed has the tooling, industrial capacity, and manufacturing know-how to produce high quality goods for cheap. So now your precious iPhone (and other similar bougie devices) comes emblazoned with "Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in China" to put people's un-querying minds at ease about the source of pretty much every single consumer good in their homes, and to stress that the innovation and ingenuity is still coming from America.

This denigration of Chinese achievement is seen in other areas. For years "experts" discounted the progress China was making in supercomputer technology — that is, until China made #1 on the prestigious Top 500 chart (which had been used for years by the U.S. as a certificate of bragging rights and a point of national pride). Suddenly, these "experts" were quick change their tune and downplay the Chinese achievement while actually trying to usurp credit for it, saying shit like it's not all about the benchmarks, it's about what the software can do in solving real world problems (yeah right, asshole. The top 500 list is not and has never been about anything other than pure benchmarks. But don't let that stop you from tending to your wounded ego).

And in academia: Chinese students (and some other east and south asian groups) excelling in STEM subjects and getting better grades? Well that's because they were raised by Tiger Moms and have no lives. White students are more well-rounded and have better leadership experience.

China producing more computer scientists than us? Oh wait, that one is actually a national security priority. Get the POTUS on tv to tell America's youth to start learning computer science!

Similar things goes on when people talk about the middle east. Remember when that RQ-170 went down in Iran? We got the same tired out rhetoric from the jingoistic war-hawk crowd: No way the Iranians could've brought down such an advanced U.S. Stealth spy drone. It must've crashed

Iran: we brought it down with our cyber warfare division.

-- No way! The Iranians don't have the technology or know-how yo do something like that. And our superior systems are resistant to GPS and data-link jamming. It must've just just malfunctioned.

Iran shows images of the captured RQ-170 in tact.

-- It's probably a fake!
-- It must've entered a "flat spin" and crashed softly. That's why it's still mostly in tact. The Iranians probably just patched it up and painted it to look good for the cameras.
-- No way these backwards people could've taken over command and control and landed it safely on their own. If it did go down by cyber means, they must've got help from the Russians.


Iran says it will decode the data from the drone and reverse engineer it to build their own.

-- LOLOL Impossible! the data gets erased when it malfunctions. And everything is encrypted and safeguarded from being decoded.
--They're too dumb to reverse engineer the drone, its too advanced for them. They'll probably just sell it to China or Russia


Iran posts images of their RQ-170 replica

--That's just a static mockup. It can't really fly.

Iran posts video of their allegedly reverse engineered replica flying.

-- “There is no way it matches American technology,”

Iran posts video decoded from the drone.

-- …no comment.

Seriously though, just how many times must one's arrogant assumptions be discredited and put to shame before they are able to overcome their cognitive dissonance and recognize that other peoples in the world may also be talented and can achieve great things? After a while, It's just fucking pathetic.

Only a fool constantly underestimates his adversaries.