Re: I'm in the mood for being a downvote magnet
The politicians who approved the F-35 POS have much to answer for. But of course, Lockheed was ever so friendly, and generous. It made sure to spread the manufacturing and services over as many congressional districts as possible, turning the pork-barrel into pork-carpet-bombing.
The saying goes that it's hard to persuade a man to believe the truth when he's being paid to believe something else.
And so those behind the F-35 chose to ignore the stark lesson of the F-111—the last time some benighted idiot thought a single airframe could somehow perform all tasks better than all predecessors. They also chose to ignore the lessons of single-engine combat aircraft: they are lost way more frequently than twins (some imbecile Canadian minister, asked what would happen when an F-35 engine failed up in the high north said: "It won't"). And they chose to ignore the lesson of the F-4, sent into combat over Vietnam without a gun because—obviously!—with missiles available, all engagements would be at long range, so you'd never get into a close quarter turning dogfight with a hungry MIG after your AIM-9s had run out. No missile used in combat has ever achieved even a 50% kill rate: missiles get better and more sophisticated, sure, but so do countermeasures. And complexity is an excellent way to diminish reliability anyway.
If Russian or Chinese enemies had wanted to poison American defence procurement and harm its military capability for the next two generations, it's hard to see what they would have done differently if given control of Lockheed and Congress. They must be delighted ... and happy to postpone any future war until the F-35 has supplanted its teen-series predecessors.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
