Fact is: Any airplane that needs this much defense and propaganda that it really is a good airplane.... ISN’T.
This thing is an Albatross that wants to be an Eagle.
The same amount of money in the hands of any honest, creative and capable people would have produced magic in just about anything.
Spread around it could have done more good. Drones, more F-22s, a nice fleet of new F-15SE trucks, some F/A-18 upgrades all would have done all this turd the F-35 can do and much better with much less drama and much more certainty.
Wrong airplane, wrong time, wrong compromises, wrong company.
Stealth capability only if you don’t carry much and compromise the mission? People got way carried away with stealth. WE have become educated fools enamored with technology and complexity for the sake of technology and complexity. Not everything you can do is a thing you should do.
Take for example a new Caterpillar Road Grader as an example of overly complex for its own sake. The machine has triple redundant electric over hydraulic steering. Caterpillar boasts of “fighter plane equivalent technology”! It is a freaking road grader for crying out loud! The basic function and need has not changed in a hundred years. Why, pray tell, does it need a triple redundant electric over hydraulic microprocessor controlled steering system? My old Allis Model D still pushes dirt, is easy to work on, is reliable and has never had a steering failure and it is only slightly older than I am. It still puhses and grades right along side the modern cousins that are unnecessarily vastly more complex. I will admit though that laser grade control is a heck of a major improvement! Hardly anyone knows what a blue top is anymore.