From someone who has bit of knowledge about the F-35...
Everyone says that the aircraft will take years to sort out problems when it's in service and that the program is years behind schedule. I shall explain what I know is true...
The aircraft should be all singing and dancing when it enters service able to do everything that it was designed to do. This is due to the other primary partner, BAe Systems, learning from its own mistakes with the development of the Typhoon. They are the manufacturer who produces the avionics and the rear fuselage/tail section for Lockheed Martin. When Typhoon entered service just over ten years ago it was a fantastic display aircraft but it couldn't fire the weapons that a Tornado could i.e. Storm Shadow and Brimstone. It has taken ten years to retro fit the system so it can! The F-35 is going to have these capabilities too but the RAF and RN say that they are not prepared to wait another ten years to have the system retro fitted to a brand new aircraft and rightly so. The Americans are interested in buying Brimstone from us and common sense has prevailed in not allowing the B-variant to be mass produced until it is fitted. Also in the past the big American aircraft companies have rushed aircraft into service and taken up to ten years to get the aircraft to work safely and properly.
So in the long run it may seem that the program is years behind schedule but is actually the first one ever to be on time to allow a fully functional stealth fighter/bomber to work first time without the need for the RAF/RN to buy in three years time the next updated variant and so on until they get what they want!
Strangely the F-18 is not available as such anymore! I went on exercise last year flying with the (I think) Canadian F18 Hornets and they spent more time on the ground then we did! Apparently they stopped making parts for them!