And because we bought hundreds of them before we finished testing, now we'll have to go back and retrofit those hundreds of aircraft before they meet the original requirements.

There's nothing mysterious going on here. They didn't fully test the airplane before we bought it, and now it turns out we need a more powerful engine.

So, just as surely as if we'd have to redesign the F-35 engine if it didn't produce enough thrust, we have to redesign it because it doesn't provide enough power and cooling to support the original requirements of the program.

Jet aircraft generally rely on their engines to provide power and cooling to electronics (and human occupants). So, if you need more power and cooling, you don't install a bigger air conditioner, you have to redesign the engine.

After years of electronic hardware and software upgrades, guess what we've discovered? It will take more computing power to do everything the F-35 is supposed to do. And guess what else you need more of when you need more computing power? Electrical power and cooling.

To sum up, we didn't actually test that the F-35 could do what Lockheed said it could do before we started buying it, especially in terms of what its onboard electronics can do.

At least we won't have to go looking for the crash site. The footage shows the plane spinning nearly vertically down near the runway with its gear down, suggesting a loss of control to late in the landing cycle to recover.