What Do We Get for Our F-35 Dollars?

The summary statement of an article on the constantly problematic “universal” F-35 warplane that is supposed to eventually replace every other model we currently have, begins with this statement:

Where once mighty American warplanes soared over all others, giving Washington a distinct strategic advantage against any foe, in coming decades the U.S. air arsenal will likely be totally outclassed on a plane-by-plane basis by any country possessing the latest Russian and Chinese models 

  Medium

But we should have everyone who’s any threat taken out by unmanned drones before that could happen, shouldn’t we? Perhaps we don’t really need those trillion dollar planes. Perhaps that’s just another incidence of funneling a large percentage of our paychecks to the “defense” industry – in this case, Lockheed.