IT’S MY THURSDAY ESSAY FOR VIP SUBSCRIBERS: Fat Amy Gets No Respect.

It’s the strike fighter that launched a thousand flamewars, yet somehow keeps succeeding at one mission after another. And might be about to take on yet one more.

“But it costs too much,” they said. “It flies too slow,” which is true. “The helmet is too heavy,” which is weird and also true. “It can’t dogfight.” And my favorite, because it’s the truest: “They never should have tried to make one jet fit three branches.”

Perhaps most embarrassing of all, the pilots who fly the F-35 — officially designated the Lightning II, which I always thought was a lazy name — call it “Fat Amy.”

Yet just in the last week, Lockheed Martin announced another new role for the much-derided fighter: ballistic missile defense. I mean, can something called Fat Amy do that?

And a whole lot more at the link.