Fascinating as that all is, troops, may I drag you back to the rather less exciting F-35?
Bloomberg has a headline
The U.S. May Build 500 Jets Before Finding Out If the F-35 Works
In the piece, Anthony Capaccio says
Tests of how Lockheed Martin Corp.’s F-35 will perform in combat won’t begin until at least August 2018, a year later than planned, and more than 500 of the fighter jets may be built before the assessment is complete, according to the Pentagon’s test office.
..... Michel (sic) Gilmore, the U.S. Defense Department’s top weapons tester, said in his annual report on major programs. “However, these modifications may be unaffordable for the services as they consider the cost of upgrading these early lots of aircraft while the program continues to increase production rates in a fiscally constrained environment.”
The U.S. May Build 500 Jets Before Finding Out If the F-35 Works - Bloomberg Politics
There's much more along those lines, although Capaccio does leaven the criticism with some slightly less bad news towards the end.
airsound