Oddly enough, Fairchild Aircraft was formed when Mr Fairchild decided to build a 'decent plane' to carry-around his aerial cameras...

Back to the F-35 it is interesting to contrast how Dassault in France has been slowly expanding the mission scope of its Rafale by adding additional software, without affecting the actual flight-control systems. After 12 years of gradual updates they're also starting to update hardware, such as converting to an SDR instead of traditional tuned radio.