Different circumstances I know but one wonders whether Barnes Wallis' bouncing bomb would ever have made it off the drawing board if subjected to similarly anachronistic assumptions and raw exposure to the press and poo-pooing armchair experts:
High risk strategy.
Dependent on unproven technology.
Involved use of radical tactics.
That does seem an unfair comparison. The complaints about the F-35 have happened long long after it got off the drawing board. What was the bouncing bomb timeframe anyhow - 2 years perhaps? How long has the F-35 saga been and how much has the criticism really mattered to it anyhow? It seems to have had solid support.
And if one is going to make comparisons: after all that effort were those radical bouncing tactics copied by anyone? Were they ever used again?
The Tallboys might be a better example.