This is what you get for choosing which aircraft to sponsor by going by looks. Boeing's alternative had the greatest manoeuvrability, and now the hay is beginning to stick out of their shoes, as they slowly admit that F-35 isn't as good as we were led to believe.
The Boeing wasn't without its issues however. The main reason it lost to Lockheed was the thrust vectoring used for STOVL was flawed and could cause the engine to overheat which was a large showstopper. Funnly enough, I recently read about F35 overheating while in STOVL as well!
