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Originally Posted by DJ's left nut
Except there's a pretty good chance that the cost overruns associated with making the F-35 all things to all people, not to mention the different variants required, has made it where maintaining separate airframes would almost certainly have been more cost effective.
The F-35 may have been a decent idea in theory but it should have been scrapped well before it got this far.
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I haven't followed the F-35 problems so I'll defer to you on that, but maintaining not only separate airframes, but also the industrial capacity to continue their production is pretty costly.
There's a lot of pressure right now from people who don't appreciate the value of our national defense infrastructure to use the defense budget as a piggy bank from which to fund all sorts of non-defense spending. I'd be thrilled if it were feasible to continue to have a dedicated air superiority airframe, a dedicated close air support airframe, a dedicated medium attack airframe, etc. I just don't see it being politically supportable.