Its been said before and it bears repeating. By the time the F-35C is available, unmanned aircraft technology will have advanced to the point where drones will be able to carry out this "first day strike" role deemed so neccessary.
Delays can only get worse - not lesser - and its going to be at least 15 years before the -35C is ready. In that time we could have purchased a mixed fleet of F-18 variants for interim use while the drone technology is optimised, and which could be relegated to lesser duties when the drones come online.
The F-35 in ANY of its variants can only ever be an expensive stopgap as the last of the manned fighters before the whole business becomes unmanned. Not only that, but the current stealth technology is a failure from a useability point of view anyway - failing coatings, massive repair overheads in time and cost. By the time the aircraft comes online the technology will be outdated anyway. Time to slash and burn and kill the project completely
Last edited by COCL2; 12th Jan 2012 at 23:51.