Win lose or draw with the F35 program, one thing that will drive me absolutely insane is that if they pull the plug on it say in the next year or so, after spending SO much on the development so far.
If this was to occur, it would remind me SO MUCH of the RAH66 Commanche program, where the US Army/Pentagon spent 9 Billion developing the thing, then cancelled the 6 billion dollar part of the program that actually would build them. So, out of a 15 billion dollar program, they spent nearly 2/3 of the budget to create it and make it work (by many accounts it worked incredibly well), then decided to not spend the smaller amount of the budget which would actually build and maintain them. Like, what the h e-double hockey sticks?!
One thing I'll repeat is all the tech and stealth and ordinance carrying capacity aside, a HUGE, and I mean HUGE factor for export customers with smaller air forces, like ours in Canada, is the 50% greater internal fuel fraction the F35 has over current fighters like the F18 Legacy. We don't have a huge tanker force, in fact I think Canada has 2 converted transports for our entire fighter force of about 85 upgraded Hornets, and 65 projected F35's should we buy them. Simple things like this, which will result in far greater range and flexibility for F35 customers upgrading gen 4 and 4.5 fleets are a crucial point in favor of it.
I still have to wonder though, after reading a couple of books and papers from Barett Tillman, if small air forces like ours would be better served with larger numbers of lower tech, cheap, but still high performance planes like say the F20 Tigershark. With the advances in engine tech since the F20 was new, it would be even higher performing, and it was already 1.1 or 1.2 thrust/weight back then. Stick in a decent radar, or even a small AESA, forget the stealth stuff, and I think for our mission, which is primarily NORAD air defense missions and supporting NATO ops on occasion, we MAY be better off. Tillman states that due to it's simplicity, the F20 or a similarly simple modern fighter would have sortie generation rates triple that of these modern wizzbang jets with all the stealth features and what not. I'm not saying this is the way to go, just that I've enjoyed reading what air force experts have considered regarding this route.
Thanks for posting Beau, I always await your responses in the F35 thread, I for one appreciate the work you guys are doing, it must really suck in this age trying to keep positive with the media and every group that has a dog in the hunt either scrutinizing or bashing every single incident that occurs. One thing that keeps me hopeful is something you always hint at, that we the public aren't cleared to get the whole picture of what's really happening with the F35. I think that it's probably a lot like the special operations field, the only times the public hears anything is if it revolves around failure, the successes by design and requirement most often go unknown.