Some men like their planes like they like their women:

Curvy like the Mig & Su series

Tall & build like a brickhouse… aka the F-4

or flat with muscles like East German Olympic Gymnasts… aka the F-22

Then there are to oddballs who like them short & fat… aka X-32

Then there are those who still live in their mother’s basements and play with their computers.. aka Drone pilots 😎

The production F-23 proposal used a DSI bump and the engine was buried deeper & higher in the airframe.

SUPER hires version HERE

why hasnt anyone else thought of that ?

Because GPS receivers could be made to (if not already designed to) filter out signals that come from anywhere except up… you know, where the GPS satellites are.

incorrect, they are on the bottom, not top

Nope.. they are on top

Here is a shot of the bottom and there are no flare ejectors.

http://pop.h-cdn.co/assets/16/42/980×626/gallery-1476816492-17872587-980×1200-0.jpg

I feel like the canted pylon would have horrible effect just like the canted pylon on F-18 E/F , basically semi deploy air brake

The -18’s toed-out pylons were made worse due to the weapons & tanks on it which were a contributing factor. The most that pylon on the F-35 will have is an IIR AAM (9x or ASRAAM).

Besides, the -35’s outer pylon is only canted down a little and not toed-out.

I wonder what would be easier for the DIRCM install, popup turret, permanently expose VLO qualified turret, or keep it under an EOTS-like faceted window?

The F-35 carries 48 flares.

Two sides where each side of the bracket holds a 6×4 grid of flares.

On the Decoy estimate, my bet is 4 since the canister is twice as tall as it is wide then the 4 alignment markers make sense in the above photos.

Conversely to general opinion, chaffs are very sensitive infos. 4 types of chaffs (coupled with varable pulse cartridge) would not surprise me, some other planes do have different types of chaffs depending on potential/incoming threats.

The “4 different types” are flares not chaff, but the same “sensitive” info likely still applies.