F-32!

Lockheed Martin, as the winner of the Joint Strike Fighter contract, has failed.

The company that came in second place could help save some of the DOD and U.S. credibility.

Or not.

Part of me is against what I am going to suggest because on paper, the JSF Joint Operational Requirement Document (JORD), composed in the 1990s and signed off on at the beginning of the last decade, is obsolete.

I can deal with some ugliness if it is functional. What would I want the F-32 to be?

A modern A-7 of sorts.

Conventional take-off and landing only. Carrier aircraft have to be designed from scratch. Not after a faulty STOVL requirement has polluted a "joint" design. So, no CV and no STOVL variant.

As simple as possible. I would want the F-32 to keep its original delta design. Part of the affordability angle was that the wing would be easier to manufacture.

Other simplicity would be maintenance. Low observable requirements would not dominate.

The real goal would be to turn it on and drive, several times a day.

It would be a consumer of information on the network. Not a producer.

No radar. It would have a IR sensor / helmet setup not unlike the F-16/Block60. Or, whatever Boeing comes up with. It would have a second IR rig as the ATFLIR, LITENING or SNIPER-XR recessed into the bottom of the aircraft.

Software bloat would not fly off into the wild blue yonder.

The aircraft would have a gun.

External wing pylons when mounted would carry external fuel tanks; JASSM-ER, JSOW, HARM,PAVEWAY, JDAM, Harpoon, SLAM-ER, SPICE, JSM, M-77, CBU-105, slicks and high-drags.

Weapons bays similar to the X-32 with only a 1000lb store requirement for the air-to-ground stations.

Self-defense suite similar to a BlockII Super Hornet. This would help with passive ELINT.

The requirement would not be able to take on high-end aircraft but, would work well with F-22s,Typhoons and similar.

A joint coalition strike aircraft, that, for one-aircraft air arms, could perform light interceptor ability.

Foreign sales?

Traditional FMS with off-sets.