The U.S. Air Force’s chief of staff wants the service to develop an affordable, lightweight fighter to replace hundreds of aging F-16s and complement a small fleet of sophisticated F-35 stealth fighters. But an affordable, lightweight fighter is exactly what the F-35 was first conceived to be.
They did that? If anything I'd think EW would be the one area where F35s would be completely state-of-the-art.
Yeah, because Lockheed Martin said F35s would have built in EW capability, so the AF would no longer need dedicated EW aircraft. Now, the F35 does have a built in EW system, but, because it's EW I can't really find how effective it is, of course. There are upgrades on it being done by the Navy and the Israelis, but honestly that might just be normal for a program.
Oh ok, I get what you mean. I thought you were talking about the EW capability of the F35s themselves.