F-35B

In my latest column, I free up my inner Loren Thompson to argue for the F-35B. Obviously, the issues with the aircraft are more complicated than I could deal with in a relatively short column. Nevertheless, watching the debate over the problems with the F-35B tends to leave me a bit flummoxed in a sense that this video captures:
Everything's amazing, and nobody's happy. We have with the F-35B a VSTOL aircraft capable of competing with conventional fixed wing fighter/strike aircraft; complaints about price, payload, stealth characteristics and so forth seem quibbles in the face of that larger reality. This isn't to say that I embrace the Hendrix/Williams position on CVs vs. LHAs, but I do think that the comparison of a Nimitz or Ford CV with a big deck amphib obscures more than it reveals.

Here, incidentally, is an exceedingly enthusiastic video of the F-35B landing on USS Wasp: