"Don’t Expect the US Military’s Next Fighter to Be Joint" Topic

"After two decades of working side-by-side on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, the U.S. Navy and Air Force won't be teaming to build a successor jet, a top Navy official said.

"I don't necessarily foresee an exact sort of repeat of F-35 in a single solution set." Angie Knappenberger, deputy director of air warfare for the deputy chief of naval operations for warfare systems, said Monday at the Navy League's Sea Air Space conference in National Harbor, Maryland. "I do see an awful lot of capabilities and systems that we can take, share one service to another."…"
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translation: "Yeah, we didn't save anywhere near as much money as we thought we were going to by having everyone buy the same basic airframe, and production/introduction was extremely delayed because of that.

Never again."

The F-35 platform benefited the air force and marines more than the navy. F-35C orders were scaled back as navy brass preferred the Superhornet/Growler combo over pure stealth.

And the Air Force benefited the most, as the F35A kept getting lighter and lighter due to the modifications needed for the -B to be STOVL-capable.

You know, the USAF, Navy, and Marines previously had a very successful "joint strike fighter" -- the F-4 Phantom II. I don't think joint development was the problem here; it was bureaucracy and the failure of the government to hold the contractors accountable.