It doesn't help that the F-35 is going to be the only fighter that Australia is going to be operating in any major capacity for the next couple of decades - considering how we held on to the F-111s for dear life until Parliament threw up their hands because they were getting too expensive to maintain. It seems that the F-35s are replacements for the F-111s which were designed specifically as long range bombers and served their role perfectly. The F/A-18 (I think this is Australia's primary air superiority figher at the moment) are ageing and keeping them airworthy is proving inefficient and costly. F-22s can't be purchased due to an export ban. It seems like it was a very expensive gamble from the beginning and by the looks of it, it might not pay off.

Yeah, thanks for that. I hadn't really thought of the VTOL aspect of any Marines-linked plane as being related to Guadalcanal, despite the fact that it was also used as justification for the V-22 Osprey (and, when pressed during congressional hearings back in the '90s, was the only justification the USMC could come up with). That criticism aside, the article doesn't really go in depth into what a boondoggle aviation contracting has become, pretty much since WWII.

It's in the numbers - the J35 is a direct payout of 400 billion dollars. By way of comparison, we've paid out $17 billion on Hurricane Katrina. At that point, it's a jobs program. The Soviet Union was the same way - GDP was pretty much military spending... I mean, this program is fully half the cost of the Iraq War. When you're dealing with a budget like that, it isn't so much about what the plane will do as who the plane will feed. As far as their criticisms of its airworthyness, to be truly fair they're wargaming numbers, based on assumptions. Could the plane be better than advertised? Sure. Could it be worse? Undoubtedly. Is there any real possibility of an air war with China over Taiwan? Fuck no. Is that the most plausible air superiority conflict for the JSF involving the United States? Yes indeedy. Does that point to the superfluous nature of the entire program? Yes and no.

The last true air superiority fighter the US built was the F15. We've been flying it so long that we've grounded the fleet several times because their wings are about to fall off. They've been undisputed in the sky - none have ever been shot down - and over half of their kills were racked up by the Israelis, who use them against dirty brown air forces in the Persian Gulf. Will the Israelis buy F35s? Probably. And they'll get modifications as they always do, because they're a client, and those modifications will likely include reconfiguration to bring it closer to what it oughtta be, and everyone will get rich. And should those dirty brown air forces clamor for hot iron, they won't get PAK FAs they'll get SU-35s(see also: monkey model and that way we can pretend to be mad at Russia but we'll all still make money.

I could write more. I could write pages more. But what it really comes down to is if the armed forces bought what they needed instead of what they wanted it'd be all Tomahawks and UAVs, all the time. We've built 1100 F15s. We've built 4,500 F16s. We can deploy a tiny fraction of that to any theater- the whole wargame that got the author all pissed off supposed 35 F35s. Frankly, we could just reheat the shit we got and expect total air superiority well into 2100. Anyone who doubts me has never been to Davis Monthan. Zoom out. I dare ya.

Dunno. It all just makes me tired.