[abarringer]

If the primary purpose was to funnel money from you -> .mil -> military industrial complex it succeed wildly beyond all expectations. Otherwise not so much.

I lived and worked very close to Eglin Air Force base where all the initial F35's went. Many Air Force people thought the primary design decisions were to spend money and little else.

[usrusr]

But there's a reason to funnel that money besides padding pockets: the nominal reason (and not a bad one if you are not a full pacifist) is to retain development capability for the next time you actually do need a military aviation innovation burst. And arguably this wasn't really successful. Chances are that rebuilding capability from a hypothetical starved state would yield better results than restoring efficiency from the comically fattened state they got.

[craftinator]

> the nominal reason (and not a bad one if you are not a full pacifist) is to retain development capability for the next time

Is the F-35 a good example of what we want our next aircraft to be? It seems to me that we now have a whole development infrastructure set up to build expensive, buggy aircraft. That "development capability" that we've retained isn't a good one.

[usrusr]

Exactly what I meant. The money funneling has a valid purpose beyond actual aircraft, but as it stands it doesn't really serve that purpose.