Also, much of the hoopla about the F-35 is that it can see further than all or most other aircraft so that it can do a lot of damage by standing off. Thus it is more like an aircraft carrier than a fighter jet.
We could have designed and deployed heavy lifting blimps at a fraction of the cost.
I am old enough to have lived through the acquisition of many weapons systems in my lifetime such as the F-15, F-14, and the Abrams tank.
There was massive hysteria with all of them, especially around the Abrams. They said it was too expensive, it guzzled too much fuel, it would never work in the desert, it couldn’t stand up to combat, it was too easily destroyed, it’s electronics would be unable to operate in combat, and so on.
It has become for the last several decades the finest main battle tank in the world, and combat tested.
No new weapon system comes out of the box and works perfectly, or very few do.
People need to have some perspective on this. People get hysterical saying the F-35 can’t win a dogfight with an F-16.
From hearing the viewpoints of those who fly the F-35, if you end up in a dogfight, you have squandered every single significant advantage you had. They have had to develop new tactics to use the aircraft, and I don’t see anything wrong with that.
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The “Big Lie” has always been the favorite of Mystery Babylon.
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This does not bode well.
Want to word on F-35s, go to the source - F-35 pilots, nuff said.
God’s eye changes everything. It is a giant leap in tech and will be the greatest tool ever delivered to flying warfighters.
Personally, I think they made a mistake replacing the F-111C with the F/A-18E/F/G. A more appropriate replacement in terms of speed, range, payload, and attack capability would have been the F-15E or a variant.