VIDEO: Three F-35 variants too many?

General Martin Dempsey, newly-appointed chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, fired a warning shot at the F-35 in a House Armed Services Committee hearing today. Three variants may be more than the military can afford, Dempsey said. The three-variant strategy was adopted in the late-1990s partly to make the programme affordable. The theory was that a common production line and economies of scale would allow Lockheed Martin to tailor the basic F-35 aircraft to suit the operational needs of all three services.