The whole F35 program(me) is bizarre,as we have said many times - the non stovl versions design is compromised by the stovl version design.LM have bitten off a whole lot more than they can chew with the F35B......
Bizzare? "We?" That's your opinion and one held by no one other than the very few "we". Certainly the program was ambitious. In the extreme. But the ambitious nature of the program was dictated by the customer, the US gov't. It was not LM's idea. The gov't demanded a single airframe for all the services despite past attempts at a one size fits all approach having failed. But the US gov't was convinced that new technology would make it possible this time around and demanded it. And a lot of smart folks from a lot of different countries agreed. Or at least agreed enough to buy into the program. Were they right? Mostly. Certainly sufficiently so that USAF and USN are now collaborating on a common (or at least mostly common) 6th gen fighter to replace both Super Hornet and Raptor. That was previously unheard of. Will other nations join in? Maybe. Maybe not. Will USAF and USN part ways before the aircraft is built? Maybe. Maybe not. But one thing is pretty much certain. F-35 development taught a lot of lessons that will inform the design and the programmatics of the next fighter.
.....and from a technical/maintenance point of view it will be a bit of a nightmare!
Hmmmmm. That's raw speculation without the smallest bit of data to back it up. Indeed the data that
is available appears to contradict it. USMC is making great progress towards IOC. And by the time RAF/RN get their F-35s, the "technical/maintenance" aspects will be largely sorted out. That's just one advantage of a joint program like this. Solving problems for one customer benefits a bunch of other customers.