LESSON (RE-)LEARNED: Don’t Expect the US Military’s Next Fighter to Be Joint.

“I don’t necessarily foresee an exact sort of repeat of F-35 in a single solution set.” Angie Knappenberger, deputy director of air warfare for the deputy chief of naval operations for warfare systems, said Monday at the Navy League’s Sea Air Space conference in National Harbor, Maryland. “I do see an awful lot of capabilities and systems that we can take, share one service to another.”

When the F-35 was conceived in the 1990s, it was thought that three variants for Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force might share about 70 percent of their parts, saving money. Almost 30 years later, the jets are only about 20 percent the same.

Different tools for different jobs.