The thing with fighter aircraft is that you don't need the latest and the greatest at production day, what you need is a extendable platform for the future & an

The thing with fighter aircraft is that you don't need the latest and the greatest at production day, what you need is a extendable platform for the future & and good training platform for the pilots. These platforms need to live for about 40 years with constant updates & training (F-16 introduced in 1978). F-35 is neither. Because of design decision of marrying three different military branches requirements (air force, navy, marines) with three different fighter roles (intercept, ground support, reconnaissance) a lot of the extendability is already gone. Cost of flying F-35 is one of the highest yet for a fighter aircraft (except maybe for F-22), this means that the pilots will not get sufficient training. Sure, with modern on the ground simulation you can get quite far, but you need the real deal, especially when training in formation & against real adversaries, like other countries. Which fighter aircraft will win the dogfight? The one in the air with a skilled pilot and not the empty one on the ground for maintenance. And of course, future development of highly advanced UAV:s & future radar & missile technology will make the case for expensive fighter aircraft even tougher.