We spend a lot on the military, including air force 1, and spend very little on science like JWT.
The USA had a strong hand in blocking domestic aviation projects in countries that lost WWII.
I'm happy to see that a lot of countries are now slowly reaching viability of more diverse more or less modern jetliners. I wonder what disruption this will bring to the aviation market. It's clear that the duopoly of Boeing and Airbus is not a feasible approach to affordable aviation.
It will be even more important given that the EU wants to block more and more Russian imports. Which means that a block on titanium would further increase Airbus pricing.
And in those who were on the winning side too.. Likely in large part due to pressure from America, Canada killed the Avro Arrow and bought American Voodoos instead.
It's an expensive aircraft but everything is expensive now, even a new F-16 is as near as makes no difference the same cost (not including maintenance...)
I have sent my friends and families videos of Javelins and Switchblade videos marvelling at how amazing these pieces of tech are. But given the numbers that have supposedly been pouring into Ukraine and what is realistically happening it seems more like an unrealistic sales video than actual performance.
So you might want to rethink that. By all measures the war in Ukraine is fought with Artillery + reconnaissance drones right now. And the one with the better recon and artillery seems to be winning.
To your cost tradeoff. It actually seems more like the real tradeoff is cheap armour that your factory can churn out at a realistic pace, while being an uncomfortable powderkeg vs. really expensive equipment that you're too worried to use, because for every one that you use the other side can build 6.
cannot, objectively, be called a pretty good plane. No. At best, it can be considered a pretty good cash cow for Lockheed and its shareholders. A bottomless pit being endlessly re-filled with dollars in exchange of empty promises.
Where it did succeed, however, is in being an excellent Trojan Horse. With all the unattainable promises it made, it lured in a few European countries, that, once it was clear the costs would sky-rocket, where in too deep to pull out. And all the cash that was wasted in the process was not used to fund/develop a competitor.
Oh. And Lockheed got lots of valuable, free knowhow in the process, in exchange of construction promises that never materialized, because, you know, top-secret developments, leak risks of sensitive technologies, etc.. So win-win for them again.
Every time I've read about the F-35 getting killed its either in a situation where it's not supposed to be (it's not meant to be a dogfighter as per se, all the sensor fusion is for BVR) or really really old dogfights from when the jet was still having proper teething issues.
Similarly this weight limit seems to be resolved.
https://theaviationgeekclub.com/lukes-f-35s-receive-upgraded...
Within the last year or so at least two countries in Europe have ordered the F-35, competing aircraft do exist they just aren't good enough apparently.
Silly humans. Don't even have anyone to fight but themselves.