Did a YF-23 Test Pilot give us the secret sauce to how LM has saved the F-35 even though its development has been a disaster?

Tyler has an interview with a famed YF-23 Test Pilot that tells the story of the competition between it and the F-22.  It's a must read and will make you wonder once again if we didn't pick the wrong airplane.

Many state today that the YF-23 would be a natural in the Pacific and would fit better into future warfare and I agree.

But one thing stands out.  Read the entire article (its just that good) but this part made me sit back in my seat.

Metz makes another incredibly valuable point about how Lockheed knew how to present and market their airframe far better than Northrop did. He notes that not everyone who would be in a position to select a fighter aircraft would be an engineer and that they may not even be technically astute. So leaving 'lasting impressions' on a conceptual level, even if they don't tell the whole story technically, can give one side an advantage over the other.

Northrop's team was made up of brilliant engineers—Metz says they were beyond compare—but they thought and spoke almost exclusively in engineering terms. Meanwhile, Lockheed infused far more marketing, salesmanship, and pizazz—'lasting impressions' as Metz eloquently puts it—into their YF-22 flight demonstration program. They fundamentally understood how to sell their aircraft and how 'showmanship' heavily impacts the acquisition decision-making process. Northrop didn't and that fact may have proven fatal for the YF-23. 

Showmanship.

Marketing.

Lasting impressions.

Is this what we want in airplane competitions?  Is this how our military should select gear?

You guys won't like it but this same formula is being used with the F-35.  Glitz. Marketing.  Nonsensical terms that have no real meaning.  "Sensor Fusion".  "Quarterback of the sky".

Nothing solid that we the people can grab onto and make an evaluation for ourselves.

It's pixie dust.

It's religion.

It's faith.

Even though they haven't delivered in almost 20 years we're still suppose to believe!

Lockheed Martin isn't a defense corporation that happens to market its products.  It's a marketing corporation that happens to dabble in defense.