Forgive me, I am very tired, I should not have mentioned Wild Weasel, you are correct on that.

I believe my point that additional aircraft will not render your strike aircraft less visible stands though.

I understand both of those principals.

I am not convinced they apply here.

How many F-18/E/F/G/H...'s will you need to build to accomplish the mission?
If it doesn't survive well and doesn't knock down the enemy well enough, you might still blow your budget.
And have more maintenance issues. And have to staff for that number of aircraft.

Yes, if the package fits, you can retrofit, but there are limits.

The aircraft's ease of maintenance is an issue, but it take a backseat to it's mission requirements.

If you start again, which is an option, you don't always develop existing platforms, you develop new.
Or we would not have the highly regarded aircraft we have.
Especially in stealth, where the airplane shape is so important.

F-22, air superiority is it's main task. It is not a swiss army knife.
The F-14 and F-15 were not tasked with other roles until later in their evolution.

Stealth is never handled by having other aircraft along. You move from visible to even more visible.
Wild weasel aircraft will accompany some strike packages to confuse/jam enemy radar, but that is not absolutely not stealth.
If the F-35 is that bad that it will require that kind of support, then the whole point as been missed.
And probably, it is the frontal hemisphere that they care about. It is an attack aircraft, and will be headed towards the enemy ( until they have accomplished ( hopefully ) their mission and are egressing ( but at that point, the enemy knows they are there... ) )

No aircraft came off the designer's in great shape. Not in any era.
WWII aircraft manufacturer came up with a block system within models to track all the changes they were making.

OK. But to get there, it has gone through it's development issues.

No one is standing still though.
They will not be survivable forever, and you cant ( as we are seeing ) just wait and see.

And I would be stunned and amazed if the USAF were to seriously consider buying aircraft from the same basic generation as the aircraft already in inventory. If they wanted that, they could continue building what they have ( with potential updates, of course ).

The issues are the stealth features, which are hard to backfit on existing aircraft and the electronics/radar, which you might be able to, but you would have a major refit to accomplish ( assuming there is room/power/etc ) in the aircraft.

Of course ( as already noted ) is a compromise.
And it really isnt supposed to be dogfighting, I expect, but rather ( in an ungentlemanly fashion ) standing off and killing the enemy before they get close.

And yes, they are R&D problems. Any advanced aircraft will be having those.

Note, I am not saying that the F-35 is a perfect plane and is a model for procurement or production.
All I have read leads me to think that there is plenty of learning in how to do it better next time.
But I think it is still possible to have a great aircraft ( albeit an expensive one ) to result from this.

You cannot continue to go out and fight with older weapons though.
Nominally, the F-15/F-16/F-18 are not as survivable in a modern air war.
A proven fighter is one that has been through the teething problems that the F-35 is going through now.
It may well be that it would be better to start over, but we would then have to start another project, because the above mentioned fighters are getting long in the tooth.

I think most people would choose something more fulfilling than pictures of cats.

I know I would. I have one recent software idea that I don't have time to work on.
My wife recently did a project collecting books from authors to donate to kids in the Philippines as part of a thing my Church did.
My kids and I volunteer at food bank activities often.

The things I could do if I didn't *have* to work.
And note, I would still work. I love my job, most of the time.

Yeah, sure.
But why can they sell for that price? Because enough people had it to spend and wanted it.
Why did they have it to spend? Because they *made* enough money. Wages. Higher wages.
Since these companies send the work overseas, fewer people here have that much money.

The owners of America are basically encouraging wage arbitrage because they can pick up a good number more dollars doing it.

But don't forget, markets work. As we ship more of the jobs overseas, the average wage here will fall. ( is this not what we are seeing? )
( we will ignore the pain of those who are losing their jobs, unimportant )
The ability to spend will fall.
Demand will fall. People will lose jobs due to layoffs, average wages fall some more,
Places that used to do things here will ( to the extent possible ) decline in doing so.
Wages will, in the longer term, adjust out to some kind of average.
Prices here will have to fall in line with the wages. Again, in the longer term.
Greed will cause the prices to be sticky for some period of time.
And lower cost places will be chased when/if the wages in a particular place overseas begin to climb.
Yes, factory build costs will make that sticky, but in the longer term, it will happen. ( and are we not seeing it? )
Think we will be allowed to sell stuff ( free market, man ) in those overseas places when wages have averaged out? ( arent there already restrictions? )
I don't think so. If you do, I'd like to know why you think that.

So, yeah, it is "working" for them, by giving the shaft to the customers they sell to.
Strikes me as stupid.

"What makes your perception even remotely valid?"

Nice. What makes it invalid? What makes yours better?
I see and hear about companies outsourcing( electronics, software ). I don't see the pricing for their products falling.
I infer from this that they do intend to sell at the higher prices, in line with higher wages.

"Which are growing at a rapid rate and for which there are a lot more people. Basically, the economy is moving from the developed world to the rest of the world."

They are growing, but what I see and hear is that they are not in line with pay structures in America ( they don't have to be, cost of living is lower in the developing world )

I live in San Diego ( Poway, now ), there are *tons* of good developers here ( myself included ).
( and a lot of mediocre ones too... Like anywhere ).

I have participated in the interview process at several of the companies I worked at here, and I would say we have a good talent pool ( LA's is probably larger, but who wants to live there... :-) ). It might be hard to recruit people out these days, but before the recent drop, people were fluttering here, there and everywhere.

In developing nations, sure they want to compete there.

But they still want to charge amounts commensurate with American wages when selling here.
Or why does the iPhone cost less than 200 to build, but they still charge 600 for them.
If they were pricing for the developing nations, they would be less expensive.

"Those customers aren't going to be its employees"

That isn't what it looks like from where I sit.

"And it can always sell to the developing world."

Yes, but only at prices confirming to the developing world's wages.