KenV,
I'm going to be as polite as possible and ask you to do the same in return and refrain from commenting about smoking habits or belittleling my understanding of the 'history of all things JSF'
You make it sound that it is solely the fault of the politicians that the JSF turned out the way it is today (said it before, I don't think it's a turkey but it has some serious flaws<= disclaimer) and I don't follow you in that reasoning.
It was the wish of the MARINES to have a supersonic follow up for their HARRIERS and it was LM that sold them the solution against the advice of the congessional comittee that deemed the DARPA STOVL project (an LM project) promissing but far to immature to work.
They pressured the congress and used those that still believed in the Mc NAMARA doctrine to get their way, enough blame to go around , certainly from every party involved congress, partnering nations(UK), the industry (LM) and to a far lesser extent the military top that was too weak to avoid this bad idea.
Furthermore I'm sorry to say this but you seem to be rewriting history on some of the initial JSF selling points, it was sold to us (maybe not the USAF, MARINES, NAVY and UK), the smaller partners as the next gen F-16/ F-18 and likewise aircraft , not just as a very advanced A but also a very capable F, there are no other ways of explaining this.
I won't even comment on the very onorthodox contracting about upgrades, shared work ,property rights and acces to all the software, I've seen some of the initial offerings and they are very strange to say the least, we will basically be tied hand and feet on LM and whatever they come up with (and associated costs) during the lifespan of the F35, no more in house MLU program, very little possibilities on doing some customer specific upgrades without handing all design over to LM/NORTHROP/Bae/ELBIT/PW and paying them for integration.
I'm almost rooting for us to step in as a OTS buyer like Udvar Hazy proposed, financially that might give us more room to haggle and offset in JSF work is worthless anyway, better to get some work that is worth someting from another project.
finally , and I think you know this, I was not really advocating for a stealthified GULFSTREAM, I just used it to make a point about the JSF's shortcomings.
Respectfully, and I mean that from one dutch speaking aviation lover to another, BTW like the 748, flew LH 2 weeks ago and it was like the 744 but better.