I would suggest that instead of 1969 you might want to go forward a few years and start looking at the 1980's? "
You are proving my point, aircraft continue to develop and evolve, there is no reason why the F-35 cannot do the same as long as the requirement is there.
It is questionable whether a manned fighter will be required in 50 years, but honestly why should we care and how can we?
Difficult to do as the only fixed wing fast jet strike aircraft to embark on a carrier is the F-18 and that aircraft has possibly been upgraded like no other before. Will it be even possible to do anything similar to this extremely complex, eye wateringly expensive aircraft? If we look at our own 'backyard' then the SHAR deployed onto carriers in the 1980's and sadly sea going deployments were ended in 2000, the aircraft being removed from service in 2006. If our carriers ever join the fleet, I would like to think they would remain in service much longer than a mere quarter of a century.
Will there be a place for piloted strike aircraft or will missiles\UAV's rule the skies? Who knows but as a projection of power I cannot see anything on the horizon that will 'out trump' the carrier?
The F-35 is on paper an amazing aircraft and I for one would like to see this thing be the success that we hopefully all hope it should be, but the 'B'??.