Any Air Force or Jet enthusiasts on here?

Its before its time and will be widely under used for its capabilities.

F-18A/C is still as viable a platform as any.

There is no other super power nation to even challenge the U.S.'s air superiority so its more or less bling for the sake of having bling.

The Uk, France, Russia, Germany and Italy are already in line to buy the F-35.

I've never been a fan of the post-prototype F-35. The prototype F-35 was a sexier aircraft and production had caused things to swell on the dorsal spine of the aircraft till the backbone of the plane is the same height as the top of the canopy. Thank God that this design won though because the JSF program had another prototype, the Boing YF-32 and it may be the ugliest aircraft ever designed. The faceted design helping its radar cross-section looks odd on the F-35 where the same design on the much larger twin-engine F-22 Raptor looks awesome.

I guess it just has to grow on me. It's STOL version is a vast departure in technology from the old AV8B Harriers. Harriers relied on all jet power to take off vertically whereas the STOL F-35 uses a hybrid lift-fan in conjunction with jet assist. We will see how that pans out.

If you are comparing the F-35 to the F-16 it is a huge improvement, but as a prior poster mentioned, the Super Hornets are capable of performing all the same missions and it doesn't need stealth because it is capable of fighting its way in and out of anything. As a matter of fact the Super Hornets are probably still the superior aircraft because it can carry twice the armament because it doesn't have to rely on carrying everything internally to keep its radar section down.

The F-15 Strike Eagles are also far superior to the F-35. So basically we created a ridiculously expensive platform to underpreform against the best models of aircraft we already have just so we can sell it to countries that we may have to go to war with someday.

I look at all the low observability aircraft and think back to the F-4 Fantom. The advent of air-to-air missiles in the 50's made the US military adopt the view that the future of air combat would center on shooting down your opponent at "beyond visual range" distance. Hence, they desired that their latest generation of air superiority fighters didn't need to be developed with guns. The F-4 was the first military aircraft ever designed without close-in weaponry. No other country shared this view with us so when the first F-4's were deployed to Vietnam the communist forces using Soviet fighters armed to the teeth with cannon and guns would just jump the F-4's at low level so they couldn't get a radar lock on them. It turned out to be brutal for the US airmen until gun pods were retrofitted. The future of low ovservability aircraft again will result in the military wanting to design planes with no defensive armament.

all that being said the JSF will be the most numerous airframe on the planet in 10 years so I guess I just need to accept that

But my opinion, the

Sukhoi SU-35



and the Lockheed-Martin F-22 Raptor



are the 2 most awesome aircraft in the world.

Wish we mass produced the F23 Black Widow. That was a sweet looking fighter.

Piece of unreliable shite that is going to end up costing around 1.2 trillion before it is over with. Complete waste of fricking money!!!

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F-18A/C is still as viable a platform as any.

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Hahahahahahaha. No, just no.

The F-18A/C was designed off the model that lost the 1974 lightweight fighter competition that led to the F-16. The A first flew in 1978 and entered service in 1983.

It's purpose in life was to replace the A-7 Corsair II in the light strike mission. The Corsair II was a highly effective attack platform, but it had virtually no self defense capability. The Hornet promised an aircraft that possessed the air-to-air skill needed to defend itself while still conducting those strike missions. It did bring that air to air capability to the role, but at the cost of both payload and range in the strike mission.

The Super Hornet is a scaled up version designed to address the legacy Hornet's range and payload issues.

To use a sports analogy, the Hornet is a fantastic utility infielder. He can play any position and get on base, but he isn't going to drive in runs or win gold gloves.

They're fine bomb trucks and would hold their own against limited air threats, but if forced to go head to head against competently maintained and operated modern aircraft (Eurofighter Typhoons, Dassault Rafales, or even SU-30/35 variants), they will die in large numbers.

The F-35 may or may not prove to be an effective aircraft against those threats. Since it is just entering service, we won't know that answer for a few years but compared to a Hornet it is already way, way ahead of the game.

Finally, I'll leave you with this thought. Since the end of the Vietnam war, exactly ONE manned US warplane has fallen to an enemy fighter in air to air combat.

That plane was a US Navy F-18 Hornet.

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Piece of unreliable shite

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Name the fighter since the end of WW2 that's been introduced without significant growing pains.

It is going to be a very short list.

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Those F22 planes are the shite.

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Yep, and when it was being developed many of the same things being said about the F-35 were said about the Raptor.

Now, after a decade of service it is the premier air to air fighter in the world.