Originally Posted by cattletruck
Impressive looking as the JSF is its novel flight capabilities remind me a lot of the Russian Yak variants which exhibit very similar features (directional nozzle, ducted fan with trap doors, etc) somewhat 10-15 years earlier. Just a little too boutique for me. Now there's a suitable label for this thing - Boutique Fighter Plane. Now all we need is a boutique war for it to shine.
Wikipedia the font of all knowledge
said that Lockheed bought all of the VTOL performance and research data Yakovlev had and used it when designing the X-35. So there is a connection of sorts.