This aircraft design was doomed before it ever left the drawing board.
Trying to design an aircraft for air superiority, ground attack, ISR, close air support, carrier use (single engine = deadly), STOVL, SEAD and other missions simply guarantees it will be terrible at ALL of them. Not great....not good....just terrible.
Envision a car that is designed to be great/very good at drag racing, oval racing, off-road racing and rally racing. Now think how that vehicle will stack up against any special-use vehicle built by any decent builder. No contest....the race is over before the cars are built.
Same thing with the JSF....the finest engineering in the world cannot make a turd fly like a bird.
No Kool-Aid, diog. I worked in the industry myself. I know people who work there now. I have friends in the Air Force and the Marines who are involved...and I know that AF-2 and this particular test were not at all about what David A. puports the report to be about.
But for David A. that does not matter, he achieved his aim of moving a lot of traffic to his web site.
The F-35 will end up being a very superior 5th gen strike aircraft and will be a very worthy replacement for the F-16s, the F/A-18C/Ds and the Harriers in particular.
Time will porve this correct.
That’s not Kool-Aid, that’s a prediction based upon knowledge.
That does not mean everything will be smooth as silk...a program this large and complex never is.
But once the full flight envelope is opened up, and once the full operational capabilities come online...that’s the way it will turn out.