WASHINGTON, Sept. 19 (UPI) -- The F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter is the most ambitious multipurpose fighter plane ever built, and that is precisely its problem.

The F-35 may yet turn out to be a superb aircraft. But even if it is, by definition it cannot possibly be ideal for all the different roles that its designers and promoters have already envisaged for the different versions of it.

That is because, as Center for Defense Information analysts Elise Szabo and Winslow Wheeler pointed out in United Press International columns last week, the F-35 is already designed to take over the roles currently performed by a remarkable variety of different aircraft. It is meant to succeed the wonderful old Fairchild-Republic A-10 Thunderbolt, or Warthog, in the close ground support role. It is meant to replace the also venerable and remarkable old British-designed P-1154 Harrier short take-off and vertical landing jump jet.

For at least the past 65 years, air generals have been enamored of wonder aircraft that can do everything better than anything else can, and sometimes they produce models that come remarkably close to doing just that.

The Luftwaffe's superb Junkers Ju-88 is a case in point. As night fighter, light bomber, in tactical ground support roles or even as a dive bomber, it could do almost anything superbly well.