A friend found this for me (PDF).
It is the worst you can observe where the author is standing in the shallow end of the kid's pool.
The author lacks an understanding of the scope of F-35 program problems.
Bringing up the F-15 as a comparison isn't good. Without Boyd coming in and telling a bunch of people things they didn't want to hear, there would be no YF-15. The original design requirement was just that bad. Hint: over-reaching means over-weight.
The F-22. After winning the ATF contract, the Lockheed team put in a grand effort to make a prototype aircraft. There were significant problems of all kinds. Many of them could not be resolved. The design team had the courage to be honest. They stopped to deicide the next step.
They would start all over from a clean sheet of paper. Without that decision, there would be no YF-22.
Upon his retirement, Burbage, the front man for the F-35, admitted that the design team goofed up X-35/F-35 weight assumptions. Learn from the F-22 program?
The F-15 and F-22 are important because they require significant performance to be successful. Something the F-35 will never see.
Today, the C-17 is a very useful aircraft. I would hope we would never again, use the same methods to create a transport aircraft in that fashion.
The design used the old sales technique of claiming it would never be a depot (3-level maintenance aka "PDM" for program depot maintenance) jet. This was a big selling point. Years later, when airframe fatigue and other issues showed up that promise was broken. The C-17 became a depot jet.
Years after being fielded, into the early 2000's, software upgrading on the C-17 was a mess. A test aircrew would go out to the jet and discover that the software to be tested, was unsafe for flight. For years, there were not enough software lab resources to support software upgrades.
Two C-17 patterns being followed by the F-35 program: maintenance and software assumptions. The difference is that the C-17 actually provides a useful function for the nation and our allies.
I would not bring up the V-22 to bolster an arguement. The USMC fudged maintenance reporting to keep the program moving. In other lines of work, this would bring in the FBI and Department of Justice.
Again, another F-35 pattern we have already observed: fudging maintenance metrics to make the program look good and keep the money flowing.
I would hope that like the YF-22 design team, Mr. Herbert starts over with a clean sheet of paper, to discover the truth behind the F-35 debacle.
Protecting such a program, helps to speed the rapid decline of America's air superiority.
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-Time's Battleland - 5 Part series on F-35 procurement - 2013
-Summary of Air Power Australia F-35 points
-Bill Sweetman, Aviation Week and the F-35
-U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) F-35 reports
-F-35 JSF: Cold War Anachronism Without a Mission
-History of F-35 Production Cuts
-Looking at the three Japan contenders (maneuverability)
-How the Canadian DND misleads the public about the F-35
-Value of STOVL F-35B over-hyped
-Cuckoo in the nest--U.S. DOD DOT&E F-35 report is out
-6 Feb 2012 Letter from SASC to DOD boss Panetta questioning the decision to lift probation on the F-35B STOVL.
-USAFs F-35 procurement plan is not believable
-December 2011 Australia/Canada Brief
-F-35 Key Performance Perimeters (KPP) and Feb 2012 CRS report
-F-35 DOD Select Acquisition Report (SAR) FY2012
-Release of F-35 2012 test report card shows continued waste on a dud program
-Australian Defence answers serious F-35 project concerns with "so what?"
-Land of the Lost (production cut history update March 2013)
-Outgoing LM F-35 program boss admits to flawed weight assumptions (March 2013)
-A look at the F-35 program's astro-turfing
-F-35 and F-16 cost per flying hour
-Is this aircraft worth over $51B of USMC tac-air funding?
-Combat radius and altitude, A model
-F-35A, noise abatement and airfields and the USAF
-Deceptive marketing practice: F-35 blocks
-The concurrency fraud
-The dung beetle's "it's known" lie
-F-35's air-to-air ability limited
-F-35 Blocks--2006 and today
-The F-35B design is leaking fuel
-F-35 deliveries
-ADF's wacky F-35 assumptions
-Gauging performance, the 2008 F-35, Davis dream brief
-Aboriginal brought out as a prop
-Super Kendall's F-35 problem
-LM sales force in pre-Internet era
-History of F-35 engine problems
-Compare
-JSF hopes and dreams...early days of the Ponzi Scheme
-The Prognostics
-2002--Australia joins the F-35 program
-Congressional Research Service--Through to FY2013, F-35 has received $83.3B in funding
-F-35 choice gives Dutch a shocking high cost per flight hour
-More indications that the F-35 is a failed program
-From the year 2000. Very insightful. The JSF: One More Card In The House (PDF)
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