Coffman
You could have as much vodka as you'd need in a lifetime if it was up to me!
The Gripen (translation: Griffin) is really an amazing airplane for European needs. I am sad that the US bribed Norway to buy their plane instead - that was a stab in the back from our dear neighbour. US always want huge planes - Europe is so condensed we really don't have use for them unless we need to go to Mongolia for whatever reason. Oh well, I could talk for hours about this...
draken55
Those are some beautiful pictures! Glad to see someone outside Sweden knows JAS Gripen exists!
One more fantastic airplane I forgot in my list of wonderful innovative and truly special planes I think we could rebuild and retrofit (no need to reinvent the wheel methinks) is the Harrier. Apparently hard to fly (obviously I have only seen those on TV) but an amazing feat of engineering and sadly underestimated. The VTOL is just mindblowing, really. British aerospace companies did a fantastic job in developing the Harrier! (And the Vulcan: a beauty with a horrifying sound, I would be scared ****less just from the howl itself...)
Aaaaanyway, this would be the end of my threadjack. The F-35 is a big clunk of expensive mess that I wonder what it is trying to achieve. Usually when you want it all, you end up with a pile of garbage. I thought this lesson had been learned already but I must have misunderstood things.