I am hearing the same from the military guys here in Nevada.
I believe that god’s eye makes everything else obsolete. Sure the F-35 will have lots of teething pains but the ability to see the entire battle space from the pilot’s helmet is simply a stunning achievement.
Not only is the F-35 itself an engineering marvel, but I hear the helmet by itself is another incredible feat of engineering. I heard it can do everything an Apache attack helicopter helmet can do, except a lot more. Plus the cameras arranged around the airframe allow the pilot to “see” right through the aircraft, so if the pilot ever does find himself in a close in dogfight he will never lose sight of the enemy due to blind spots, and that is a huge advantage in a dogfight. There’s an old fighter pilot warning to inexperienced pilots; lose the sight lose the fight. It will be impossible to lose the sight line to an enemy aircraft for an F-35 pilot. Personally I cannot believe so many people still believe the F-35 is a dog of an aircraft, most of them must be low information kinds of people because all the info one needs to see that this aircraft is a huge game changer for the US is right out there for all to see, one just needs to look.