It's a decent brief on the evolution, but, honestly, I think we've covered all this ground here. I knew they'd never make complexity targets. Product development in multi-region automotive is like that, too. You want commonality... AND you want differentiation. The customer wins or you both lose.
G. Scholz - see anything in here we haven't already addressed..? I see an expected US procurement of about 2400, while I think we were kicking around numbers closer to 4000, but that might include export.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-04-04/is-the-f-35-a-trillion-dollar-mistakeAt least we never have to worry about some modern-day Goering saying, "it's pretty, but..."
... because it's NOT pretty. Recall, the fat man stated that about the Spit, paraphrasing, "it's pretty but the 109 is a fully functional weapon."
Speaking of which, if I had to state what the best-looking modern-era fighter is/was, I'd be sorely tempted to put in a word for Northrop.