[gotocake]

No, and why would they? What they could do is tune their radars and missile guidance systems to combat it, and that is a much greater concern. They could also use aspects of the F-35 such as fiber-mat RAM without having to go whole hog on building a clone.

[alluro2]

I did find the notions of potentially building "a copy" of it in the article pretty funny. Why would anyone want to do that, when they have their own, quite capable, planes that can get an additional edge from pickings of F-35 tech...Mind you, I think most of the useful tech is how the plane integrates into the digital battlefield, which cannot be replicated even if you get an intact plane. Stealth coating etc. is a physical, hard-to-iterate-on thing that is becoming obsolete as we speak, while radar / AA systems are being improved (likes of S400 and S500)...I.e. its advantage will wear off at some point in time. I think (not an expert, though) the engine and radar elements are probably one of the most valuable components to salvage.