We had this debate about a decade ago. Search the archives.

I still lean heavily to a drone flown by instructors using some kind of cockpit emulation. There is no reason a 65 year old expert – that couldn’t possibly handle 9 G’s on a regular basis – should need to enter a live cockpit to demonstrate advanced skills, strategies, and tactics. We retire guys with mountains of experience way too early.

Some kind of over-powered canard-equipped flying delta wing (with a saw-tooth trailing edge) drone with an adjustable radar reflector would be dandy. Single engine. Give it tri-paddle option to mimic 4th generation TVR-equipped fighters. Single engine. Maybe give it ability to avoid collisions with other aircraft so it helps minimize potential accidents. Minimal wave drag because it shouldn’t need anything resembling a cockpit.

If you’re worried about cost of a home in America you live in the wrong place, because you chose where to live. And our highway system and low gasoline/deisel prices make it rather negligible to drive 45 minutes to an hour to commute to work. In more urbanized areas you might commute 90 or more if you want a cheaper home. The only problem is self imposed. The F-35 is a 50 states wide jobs program. The industrial base is immune to anything save for cataclysmic interruptions. Most importantly, because the subcontracting is farmed out with minimal input from 3rd parties, the parts are solely built off serialized spec sheets without revealing information to the provider other than parts numbers and critical design specifications, its practically impossible for anyone but the actual design house to use political cronyism. And because it would be so costly as a winning bidder on the main contract to get caught up in politics, it becomes a solely results driven venture. Small minds cannot grasp these big picture goals.

Lean manufacturing refers more so to modern builds with just-in-time (jit) delivery of mostly assembled sectional parts from external contractors. The contractors are responsible for assembling a competent team of subcontractors to assemble their contracted sections. The main assembly area can be more flexibly located and relocated in short time. The subcontract work itself is dispersed. Its much less vulnerable to hijacking, because multiple competitive vendors supply each lower rung in the food chain. Welcome to Lockmart 1991.

The XB-70 trumps Concorde and Vulcan.

SR-71 trumps XB-70.

I’m much more turned off by the lack of pictures in this thread, rather than the content of the opinions.

More like LCA-N naval Tejas with twin engines. Maybe India is onboard secretly, which would explain lukewarm attitude with PAKFA involvement.