Re: Procurement Choices and Pork
"Boeing's offering that flew and translated between VTOL and level flight"
I don't think either JSF competitor ever managed VTOL.
X32 only did STOVL and level flight for some values of "short" and "level flight", you had to swap the airframe if you wanted to go supersonic - something that's tricky to do in flight - was even more weight restricted than X35 and had a propensity for engine failure.
Both projects were massively optimistic engineering challenges and both would have had problems.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
