You're not aware of how long I was not only a skeptic, but also actively disparaged the airplane. It still has its problems, but for a 34 year old concept it's doing fairly well considering all the design changes caused by changing the mission. People like you forget that even the F-16 has had its empty weight increase by over 50% as well.
The F-35 was meant to be a replacement for the F-117 and AV-8. Neither of which are fighters. It is an excellent replacement for both aircraft.
🤣
You're not aware of how long I was not only a skeptic, but also actively disparaged the airplane. It still has its problems, but for a 34 year old concept it's doing fairly well considering all the design changes caused by changing the mission. People like you forget that even the F-16 has had its empty weight increase by over 50% as well.
The F-16 turned out to be one of the best designed aircraft ever. Along the same lines as the legendary A-4’s.
Draken International is flying the heck out those Kiwi Scooters they acquired. https://en.defence-ua.com/news/ukraines_future_f_16_pilots_will_be_trained_by_draken_international_private_company_in_romania-7358.html
Such things are nice, as long as we don't have another Neptunus Lex 9 (pbum)