Neither the F-35 or Super Hornet will be able to stand up to high-end anti-access threats. Certainly not every mission is anti-access. Which means for those missions, the Super beats the F-35 all the way around on price, utility, and overall carrier ops safety issues.
Even NAVAIR thinks so...
As for:
"What F-35 supporters invariably say in response to this argument is that whatever teething pains the F-35 is having now, it will give militaries a clear edge for a long time, as opposed to older aircraft that could be come obsolete quicker. "
The JORD for the F-35 was done in 2000. It might get into FOC in 2020 if we are lucky. Tell me about "obsolete" again.
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The design is still not stable. Production learning curve is still not there because.... the design is not stable. There is still a lot of flight testing to do. The term "teething pains" is usually reserved for a weapons system that is mostly tested and in IOC. That term does not apply here.
Interesting that the Hill wants LRIP-5 to be a fixed price contract. That kind of a situation is usually only done when production has a lot of learning curve present and there are a lot of knows. Which again, does not apply in this situation.
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What happens with LRIP V which is supposed to be fixed price and LMT says we won't sign to do it at gvt price quoted? Just seems to me everyone just assumes that these LRIPs will always work out in the end but now with fixed price and pressure to perform, will LMT go along with a lower price?
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