F-35 is too many things in one package. Self lift, or highly maneuverable, take your pick, but not both.
AWACS is great in uncontested airspace. It and the tankers would be the first targets in any battle against a creditable air force, such as the Sovs.
That’s very true. It’s ridiculous that for an aircraft to survive the acquisition process, it has to promise to be everything and then go out and “prove” through testing that it can do everything. And when it inevitably doesn’t, all your naysayers from competing companies that didn’t get the contract, anti-military politicians, and their lapdog media sit and write dissertations on what a horrible failure it is in every area. If we did everything the media told us to, we wouldn’t have fielded a single new weapons system since the Cuban Missile Crisis.