Another factor that is becoming more prevalent and will almost certainly cause troubled sleep for the UK RTS folk considering JSF, is the dreaded 'Worse than Legacy' issue. Military Aircraft Contractors now specify equipment with worse performance, comfort and protection capabilities than equipment used in UK developed military aircraft of 25-30 years ago.
In addition, determining the required levels of T&E needs consideration by people who, firstly, understand the activity and, secondly, understand the equipment to be tested. Such people are becoming a rarity and as T&E is reduced there is no opportunity for new blood to get their hands dirty. Vicious circle syndrome!
Pundits still insist that the tried and tested(!) methods of T&E are too expensive, those same pundits won the day in the early 1990s and now the UK Military Aircraft R&D capability is vapour. As WarmandDry explained, sorting out the cock-ups of quick and dirty equipment procurement generates more costs plus associated delays. Such additional costs and delays are, of course, never taken into account in the original Business Case so the money has to be stolen from elsewhere. A further spiral downwards
lm.