All singing, all dancing.  But how really capable and, er, affordable? Remember also that we don’t have the extensive military needs the US does (we use military force, and raise the possibility of it, rather less frequently):

…
The plan for the future now appears to be one of placing all of our chips on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter [more here]. While the aircraft incorporates some features from the F-22—stealth technology, an internal weapons bay, an active electronically scanning array (AESA) radar [more here on the F-22, with quite a bit on the F-35 too]—what it is now being called on to do is to replace a score of older-generation aircraft, and to take over many of the missions being flown by the F‑15 today.

John Paul Vann, one of the unsung American heroes in Vietnam, used to have a saying that “a compromise means putting a right and a wrong together and getting neither. War is much too serious a business for that.” Russians are fond of saying that “a compromise makes a great umbrella but a terrible permanent roof to live under.” For all of its wondrous attributes, the F-35 is a compromise on a number of levels and is unlikely to live up to its billing.

Aside from not having the power, range, and weapons carriage capability of the F-15—nor being an even match for the Russian and Chinese aircraft it might face in a conflict—it is not going to be the easy-to-repair, economical to operate aircraft that the F‑16 is. “A number of these F-35s being acquired by foreign partners could end up being parked in hangars and not flown very much, because no one will be able to afford to fly them. It could financially break some of the air forces that are slated to procure it,” said one senior analyst from the Jane’s Information Group…

Indeed. Via DefenseNews’ “Early Bird Brief”.  Also perhaps relevant:

Lockheed Loses Defense Approval of F-35 Cost-Tracking [more here]

Meanwhile a Canadian angle:

Former defence bureaucrat decries feds’ purchase of F-35 jets
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[Alan] Williams, who was the assistant deputy minister at the Department of National Defence (DND) until he retired five years ago, told the committee when he continued Canada’s participation in the Joint Strike Fighter program, it wasn’t a commitment to buy the planes, only to help develop it and secure business for Canada’s aerospace industry…

Quite. This is what this government was officially saying in 2008:

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The Government of Canada’s participation in the JSF program makes it eligible to benefit from preferential conditions and advantages reserved for JSF partners; however, this participation does not commit it to purchase the aircraft…

The government in fact now simply avoids the commitment issue (as it does saying what the military requirements that only the F-35 will satisfy are), concentrating almost exclusively on supposed oodles of money companies here will make and the attendant jobs (and, of course, votes):

The F-35 and Canadian industry: What does the 2006 MoU say?/US Upperdate–plus Dutch

Also:

The F-35 and the fighters the US Navy still is buying…/Gov’t silence Update

Mark
Ottawa