It actually requires substantially less maintenance time if you look at the equivalent force it replaces, for example the associated awacs capability needed for a sortie for previous gen fighters.

Honestly, it's just absurd to think that any jet fighter is somehow low maintenance. The issue here isn't the f35, it's the host country becoming a unreliable/hostile partner.

> if you look at the equivalent force it replaces

And what if you look at the equivalent force it's competing with on the market? It's a bit pricey once you factor in CAS and supersonic interceptors to fill the gaps.

> The issue here isn't the f35, it's the host country becoming a unreliable/hostile partner.

Here? The issue is the F-35. What happened to Pakistan's F-16s when America became an unreliable/hostile partner to them? They kept flying them for decades, that's what happened. Same with Ukraine's Su-27s, Iran's F-14s, North Korea's MiG-29s... plenty of countries keep other nation's keepsakes in the air. The jet abides.

The F-35 has to be bought as a subscription package, you can't "own" features like sensor fusion without the US' consent. All but one nation has been denied the right to modify the airframe, everyone else is basically just renting the jet with permission to go eat an R-77T when the time comes.

The us provides has provided upkeep for pakistans f16s under strict supervision and according to some AI summary maintenance has been a huge issue for them that limited their effectiveness. So not sure the story you are painting is quite as rosy as the reality. Fighter jets are not easy to maintain, without a large domestic fighter jet industry.

Consider for example when one of the radar elements in the f35 burns out, among the thousands that are there. Where in Pakistan does on obtain custom GaN radar ASICs that integrate with the f35?

Apparently one aspect has to do with the inevitable result of a what a stealth fighter is: it can deploy weapons far further than it can see. So without comlinks with intelligence from a specific satellite system, it loses half its features.

Second for the on-board radars to evade detection they need to be reprogrammed with the latest updates regularly. Not so much because the programming has a kill switch but because otherwise "adversaries" could still turn out to have rockets that can home in on an F-35.

And even in the case of the US, you don't have to shoot down that many F-35s to get them all.

It is. Germany had to invest heavily in airport infrastructure and security.

One strong reason why Germany got a batch of F-35 instead of the very capable and EU manufactured Typhoon is the fact that the F-35 is certified to carry nuclear bombs, and the Typhoon need certification for this particular mission capability. (The ordonance in this case is US tech).

Source: Luftwaffe