>>13489838>>13489869>>13489898The VTOL is a technical prowess but as a fighter jet is a complete disaster.
In performance, reliability and logistic (the 3 "version" are so different you make no economy of scale). It is subpart in everything and its stealth capability are degraded because the size of the VTOL fan increase its signature. The internal weapon bay is so small that it will likely only be used as interceptor, never as a bomber.
The reason it "sell" are multiples but few all are good:
- first reason is sunk cost fallacy: those countries participated to the development, unaware it would be a clusterfuck. If they pull out they won't get their money back.
- second reason is lobbying, Lockheed have a long history of doing that (see F-104). They bribed some officials so their country would not even try other aircraft like the Rafale, the Eurofighter or the Grippen before making a decision.
- third reason is political, the US put pressure on some countries, other country can only have nuclear weapon if they accept the F35 that will carry it. There's also how W. Bush told South Korea "buy the F35 or I'm removing US troops leaving you alone with China and North Korea".
The B variant is the less interesting for foreign country.
The only country who needed it is the UK who couldn't afford a new Aircraft-carrier with catapult and so chose to buy F35B, in the end they needed to modify the deck so it resist the exhaust. Singapore was a surprise thought.
I'm not surprised they then decided to develop a wingman drone with high-attrition in mind. The way it's going, the only thing that will prevent the F35 from jobbing is a protective wall of cheaper drones. The drone will also be carrying the weapon the F35 can't without losing its stealth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kratos_XQ-58_Valkyrie 
