Channel: looks to me like you're trolling.
The title of this thread is "F-35 cancelled, then what."
It's about five and a half years since its inception, and the F-35 isn't cancelled. (For better and for worse).
The program's core problem is rooted in how the DoD has tried to apply the 1986 Goldwaters Nichols act and an imperative to do things more jointly (with the belief that this will save money -- in some cases, it does).
As you can see, trying to create a high performance aircraft that can do every thing isn't saving much money. Nor is it necessarily giving the three services what they need in a timely fashion. But because a lot of other options have long since been foreclosed, it's the girl the services will bring to a lot of future dances. Sadly, she is not the homecoming queen.
I have a suggestion. Start a new thread. Call it "F-35 not cancelled: now what?"
This thread is, as you note, 447 pages long. Oddly enough, AF 447 is one of the first topics on PPRuNe that really got my interest, and it was about a disaster, a horrific wreck.
Maybe this thread needs to end at 447, because as a thread it's become a train wreck.
By the way, some of you may remember an aircraft called the Hornet. When it came out, to replace the Phantom and the A-7, the Effin A Teen got substantial criticism and had some problems. The Pentagon Paradox was written as the usual blistering critique on the program (which had its share of FUBAR ). Here we are, 30+ years later, and people love the Hornet. Oh, wait, when the E/F was being bandied about, the "it's not really an F-18, this is a scam" arguments flew about. I remember them well. Here we are 20 years later, and people love the Super Hornet.
We've Seen This Movie Before!