Phillip,
I don't see how F-35 differs from any other platform in the respect of upgrades and modifications. The UKs early aircraft will have to go through this process but the mods have already been done and tested on the Development fleet. In fact the success of one of them was critical to F-35B coming off probation nearly 2 yrs ago.
The flight envelope is certainly not untested, otherwise Eglin would be a very quiet place! Work continues to expand it further at Pax and Edwards as you would expect.
I agree that there is still plenty to do and concurrency has always been an issue. I would suggest that the work at Eglin is critical to ensuring that the aircrew and maintainers are ready and experienced as soon as possible. Otherwise there would be even more delay.
The upgrade from Harrier GR7 to GR9 did not instantly ground all Harrier pilots or render all Avionics test equipment and GSE obsolete, why do you think F-35 is any different?
Last edited by WhiteOvies; 13th Oct 2013 at 18:51.