Originally Posted by LowObservable
Since then, successive Oz governments have simply refused to re-evaluate the decision, backed up by phony foundations, a complaisant local media and a platoon of online fankiddies.
And backed by experienced Defense personnel who have evaluated the alternatives with access to far more hard data than you know exists, and who are willing to admit that the only possible alternatives (nothing Russian/Chinese/Indian is politically acceptable) will be out of production before or around 2020, while new F-35s (and improved models thereof) will be coming off the assembly lines past 2030.