I haven't flown an F-35, though I have tooled around at their training simulator in the factory up at Dallas. I can't comment on the combat application of the F-35, but I can tell you one thing for sure: It's simple. From starting it up, to navigation procedures, to landing on a moving carrier deck, it's designed to be simple. There are two sides to this. The government side of reduced training and fatigue on pilots from the basics (I have literally seen students with no flying experience ever step into the sim and successfully fly an approach down to landing on a pitching carrier deck) which is great. Then there's the pilot's side, where many F-35 students complain that the aircraft is boring because it does everything for you. While that certainly sounds like a bad thing from the twenty-something adrenaline junky perspective, that's actually a great comment on the aircraft taking the workload off of flying to allow more brain power to be used on fighting.
Marines are currently able to select F-35 directly out of advanced training, and our commodore's comment (Because he was asked a LOT at check in how to get an F-35 spot) was that he wants to send the dumbest students to the F-35. The lowest scores, the kids who own the struggle bus are the best candidates for the new F-35, because the aircraft itself does so much to lighten the load on the pilot that the kids who can't really manage to do it in a simple jet like the Goshawk might be able to find that little something extra when the jet flies itself.
