They have so many defects, they stopped communicating about them (since 2021 if I recall properly?), and until that point, the list had only been ever-increasing.
By the time they stopped communicating about the (800+) unsolved issues, they had more than 2 dozens potentially lethal for the pilots.
Boeing's (aeronautic business) end-users are millions of passengers, Lockheed Martin's end-users are Defense and Intelligence. No need for damage control if mum's the word.
They were "smart" enough to get out of the airliner business after the rather spectacular failure of the L-1011 and the whole wings falling off thing they went through with the Electra.
The military has a much higher tolerance for bullshit. The wings keep falling off the C-130 and the military keeps flying them (and the C-5).
For context the Electra, Lockheed's penultimate airliner, lost its wings twice. After that airlines stopped buying it. Meanwhile the FAA put out another wing related AD for the C-130 in 2021.
The requirements of a commercial airliner are a lot different than those of a cutting edge fighter jet. The F-35 ejection seat is too powerful and might injure smaller pilots, sure. But if I’m flying in contested airspace with enemy air defenses and fighter jets trying to shoot at me, I’d still feel a lot safer in an F-35 than in an Airbus.
There has been a lot of FUD about the F-35 spread around the press, but a surprising amount of this FUD comes straight from Boeing. You see, Boeing makes the Super Hornet, and every F-35 sale Lockheed Martin makes is a potential Super Hornet sale that Boeing has lost. Don’t get me wrong, the Super Hornet is an awesome fighter, but despite what Boeing would have you think, it doesn’t come close to the capabilities of an F-35.
Obviously I would much prefer my country and its allies to buy fighter jets from some perfect aerospace company that makes completely flawless aircraft, even when those aircraft contain groundbreaking innovations at the bleeding edge of what is technically possible. Fingers crossed that enough lessons were learned that when NGAD comes out, it’s a lot faster and smoother than the F-35 process, but this stuff is hard for everyone and for all the deserved criticism that the American military-industrial complex gets, nobody else in the world actually does a better job of making fighter jets.
