Ha, no. I don't think that at all. I've watched many videos of them flying / vertical take-off. That's why I refer to my comments on the matter as "hyperbolic". When I say "half-way kidding" I'm referring to the costs primarily; as in, I have doubts that the quantities of money being dumped into the program are going completely to the F-35, and I argue that, perhaps, some (a lot?) of it is being funneled in secret to top secret projects. To state that this definitely isn't happening would be silly, since we wouldn't find out for many years, and to state that it's probably not happening seems a little silly, considering the level of cost overruns we're talking about, and considering the fed closed F-22 but now leaves F-35 open, despite gross cost overruns and lobbying by the rest of the military–industrial complex.