Yet despite these problems, the F-35 remains the most commercially successful airframe in the world, with over 670 sold, and 2,500 on order from US-allied countries all over the world. What could explain this sales pipeline, if the F-35 was the boondoggle this article implies it to be?

For the first sales (Australia and either Norway or sweden, i dont remember), the US and lockheed Martin hid away the issues and lied on operating cost and availability.

For sales to NATO: you have to buy a plane that can carry the US bomb if you don't have one yourself (despite the fact that nukes will probably never be launched from aircrafts if at all).

For sales against competition, i don't have a lot of data, but you can check the Swiss 2022 competition between the F16, F18, Rafale, Gripen and F35, public data is scarce but basically, the Rafale and F18 would have been better on most points except VTOL and stealth. The choice however was probably economic (as while VTOL is nice, Swiss short airports are still longer than carriers, and stealth isn't that much of a factor in defense, especially in the Alps): they bought planes for less than half the price NATO countries did, and 60% of the money will be spent locally: basically 20% of the cost Germany and other NATO countries paid.

The F-35 has never been one of the "most commercially successful airframes". 670 sold is actually a pretty low number, considering its supposedly multi-role capabilities and its rare VTOL feature.

The sales pipeline started being agreed when the plane was still a concept, and it's almost exclusively a feature of American foreign policy: the US government worked hard, over almost 40 years, to ensure a significant part of design and production costs (and risks resulting from such) would be absorbed by allies through guaranteed sales. NATO countries have been under huge continuous and sustained pressure to buy it and to standardize their systems around it. Quite a few European governments found themselves struggling to publicly justify their choices in this matter, because in the end it mostly boiled down to "the Americans told us to buy it or else". The F-35 project simply would not be allowed to fail in the market.

As far as I know, no other weapon ever enjoyed such massive and forceful support by so many US administrations throughout the decades.

The article is sensational and deeply misleading.

Yes, the plane has a lot of bugs. It's got complicated software and hardware. You can't compare it to the relatively simple older designs that didn't deal with stealth.

Yes they don't need to test dogfights because war isn't a video game. When the enemy sees the f35 it is after it already sent the missile in your direction. You don't need to dogfight if you're an invisible ghost that can kill from a distance.

The f16 had a ton of bugs such as flipping over when south of the equator. It's a much better machine now and the f35 has all the makings to be a similar leap forward.

It's the most modern jet that can be acquired. The Gripen, Rafale, Typhoon are all very good jets, but they're around half a generation behind; they're still popular and acquired by various countries because they better fit their requirements (or because the US doesn't want to sell them F-35).

> What could explain this sales pipeline, if the F-35 was the boondoggle this article implies it to be?

Easy, desire to please American politicians to fetch political support from the USA and strengthen your position as military ally. Ideally, you will be looking so scary that you wouldn’t have to actually use the plane.

> What could explain this sales pipeline, if the F-35 was the boondoggle this article implies it to be?

The overwhelming USA sphere of influence over its "allies". I don't really see a NATO member buying new fighter jets from China or Russia instead without that causing a big ruckus.

That's low #s exports relative F16 etc granted 35s more expensive, countries now spend less on defense, but you'd think a joint program would end up with greater procurement from partners. Regardless, what choice is there? JSF program killed competitors/programs in many countries with domestic fighter base and after 20 years of sunk cost, options were limited to 1 exportable 5th gen fighter, doesn't matter how of much system ends up lemon. There's a reason EVERY F35 operator that could, is partnering up to pursue their own next gen multi-role program, in the mean time they're stuck with F35, and US operational controls (i.e. US generates mission data files for all operators). There seems to be disatisfaction behind the scenes, not just from DoD against LH, but operators against US oversight. Much of it just can't be loudly vocalized, i.e. think of domestic politics / drama if notion F35s is still an expensive, unreliable boondoggle, that killed your domestic fighter bsae AND can't be operated without US approval... it's borderline treasonous.

> the boondoggle this article implies it to be?

I highly recommend reading contemporary reporting on what are considered wildly successful aircraft (like the teen series F-14/15/16).

Hint: Just change one number and they're indistinguishable from reporting on the F-35.

You buy F-35s to protect yourself from the mafia .

Unfortunately we do not measure combat weapons in terms of commercial success.

We measure them in terms of lethality and reliability.

Is it? The 737 has been sold 12000 times, with thousands of orders in the pipeline. The A320 is not far behind, but only got introduced twenty years later

Even if you just consider military airframes, the MiG-21 has been built 11000 times, and is/was used by more than 50 operators world-wide, all of which have paid for the privilege.

Then there's the C-130, with 2500 units produced and operated by 70 countries.

The first American Fighter jet would be the F-4 Phantom II, with 5000 units built, and used extensively abroad.

The F-16 has 4600 units built up to now and is used by more than 25 countries.

(I'm ignoring the P-51 with its 15000 units here because they were mostly used by the US and rarely sold abroad).

tl;dr: The F-35 is not the most commercially successful airframe in the world, in fact, it does not even come close.

A totally incorrect statement.

Super Hornet and Viper both dwarf this number by 10x and in every operational theatre in the world are exactly as competent as JSF. They currently are selling far more in every market than F35b, which is the most sold f35 to everyone's suprise.

No market is seeking out f35 specifically for nato congruence/stealth. (Though, The SVTOL variant is a pleasant market-friendly surprise for Lockheed. Turns out, many nations operate sub-fleet carriers that can handle harriers, ospreys, f35b.)

Recall that the JSF was drafted in the 90s, and an operational prototype existed in 2002.

The JFS program can be both impressive and way too expensive at the same time. It doesn't need to be setting records to justify it's existance.

There's no other fifth generation fighter available for export to the richest countries in the world?

Corruption to pass trials. Corruption to get sales?

No matter how much waste, a trillion dollars is bound to create something with some value?

It's junk, in the sense that we could have gotten a much better airframe for less sad money.

There's often a certain aspect of "no-one ever got fired for buying IBM" to these sorts of things.

4,600 F16s have been built, obviously it has the time advantage, but still, once F35 beats that number, I think it will be at the top.

>What could explain this sales pipeline, if the F-35 was the boondoggle this article implies it to be?

A lack of actual proven fight-testing.

Its basically a arcade-chip tradeable for us-protection within the western worldorder.

> What could explain this sales pipeline

Let’s not beat around the bush. Protection money

The same, or similar 'mechanisms' which enabled https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_bribery_scandals ?

Microsoft enters the room....