현재 Heritage Foundation의 국방 정책 수석 연구원으로 미 공군 전투기 무기 교관 과정을 졸업하고 F-16C에서 3,300시간 이상 근무했으며 3회의 전투 작전 경험이 있는 베테랑 조종사였던 John "JV" Venable은 아래와 같은 기사를 통해 F-35에 대한 러시아와 중국의 태도를 분석하며 F-35의 가치와 미래에 대한 전망을 소개했습니다.
Russia and China immediately come to mind. Each in their own way has tried to copy the F-35 but thus far have come up short in manufacturing a comparable plane. They’d love the United States to stop buying the F-35 fighter.
Pilots who have flown fourth-generation aircraft and are now flying the F-35A jet love it. It costs 30 percent less to acquire than a combat-capable F-15EX jet and the cost per flying hour of those two jets are now a wash. And unlike that dated fighter, the F-35 jet can successfully employ in and around missile systems that will be lethal for aircrews who face them in an F-15EX fighter.
America’s adversaries would like nothing better than for the United States to curtail its buy of the F-35, just like Washington did for the F-22, because there is not an allied or adversary platform in production that can come close to competing with the F-35.