More F35 suckering...

So I just watched the full Stephenson interview on CBC, and it dawned on me that Lockheed Martin played the laundry list of countries involved for suckers with the F35. First, offer everyone a cheap buy in. Let them sign MOUs. Then raise the incentive by letting them buy to become "level 3" or higher partners. Pay more, get more. Like input on development and benefits to domestic industry on component bidding. Credit cards scales and mobile phones contracts come to mind. Do this with lots of countries and you have a investor network like a mobile phone company with a monopoly on service coverage. It makes it harder for competitors to offer a similar product at the same price, and harder to leave once you've bought the thing. Pretty soon, you're a government that's invested so much tax-payer coin and thus political capital into the project that it becomes difficult to say no when the plane is finally ready. And you're not alone. All the other cool governments are buying in too and you'll be left out if you don't. Lockheed Martin sits back and collects coin even before they've sold an aircraft. Then, pretty soon, you're Lockheed Martin and you own the majority of the global fighter market for friendly countries. Jesus, now that's a scary thought.

However, most of other cool kids are smart enough to have a diversity of aircraft types that perform similar roles. For example, the Americans have everything, the Brits have Tornados, Harriers, Typhoons, and the F35. Maybe not all stealth and such like the F35, but more than capable enough to cover any gap and then some that may occur should their F35 fleets be grounded because they discover the wings periodically fall off, or some flight control software goes buggy and crashes planes. Or some key systems maker goes under. It is an unproven aircraft, after all. Canada doesn't have such luck should we replace our entire CF18 fleet with these things and they turn into lemons...