The same have been said about every new design.
No. That is manifestly untrue and a canard. The plane is not ready for anything other than a complete redesign - it flies well, looks good, but most of its critical internal AI systems either do not work or only work once in a while - if they are even installed.
No other plane, declared combat ready, has had such a dismal combat readiness rate of only 5%, with no fixes for some of the critical systems ready, or even contemplated.
Think about it - with an air wing of 20 planes, for example, only 5 are mission capable, the rest are either hanger queens, spare parts or in lengthy maintenance.
The F-35 program ranks with the DDG-1000 LCS Class and the CVN Ford Class as the biggest waste of money for Perfumed Princes’ toys that do not work as advertised, but cost the lions share of the military’s budget.
“This is a dubious purchase costing billions. Why not use a less expensive plane?” Carl Levin (D-MI), 1982.
F-15,16 had teething problems too. The team behind Flanker design was nearly dismissed and prosecuted for sabotage after first tests in 1977 in USSR.
If the critics prevailed the World would still have to fly with Phantoms and Mig-23s.
I would disagree with the Ford class. The Fords so far haven’t had significantly more problematic at this point in their development than the Nimitz class were. We just hear way more about their problems than the Nimitz as the early Nimitz problems were heavily classified and the media of the day wouldn’t report problems even if word of them did leak out. We only very recently found out about *some* and by no means *all* of the early Nimitz problems as some of the documentation has been declassified due to age.
“The F-35 program ranks with the DDG-1000 LCS Class and the CVN Ford Class as the biggest waste of money for Perfumed Princes’ toys that do not work as advertised, but cost the lions share of the military’s budget.”
However ! Ensures employment for many retired Generals, LtCol etc etc etc ....
How many men do we have in service now, and how many Generals? Hows that compare with WW2 ?