The VTOL capability of the F-35B is nice in theory but the vast majority of navy aircraft are going to be launched off of carriers anyway. VTOL needs its own ship+aircraft concept or it is dead on arrival.
VTOL is certainly nice, but it's ridiculous to use it as a requirement of a variant of a plane of which most versions will not be using VTOL at all. Like stealth, it has a massive impact on the shape of the plane. It's ridiculous to burden non-VTOL planes with a design meant for VTOL. Just make a specialised VTOL fighter if that's what you need.
This. You can see in the design of the f-35 the massive space in the middle of the body for the lift fan that partially obstructs the pilots view behind them.
The VTOL capability are for Marine squadrons operating off of LHD ships (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Essex_(LHD-2)), or for partner nations who don't have aircraft carriers CATOBAR launch systems.
The F35 CAN VTOL, it is not meant to be used that way since it extremely limits fuel and armaments.
The carrier variant is meant to be STOL, since its a JOINT Strike Fighter meant for multi-country use, and many countries do not have large carriers with catapults. Namely Great Britain, whose largest carriers are not equipped with catapults, since they are designed to use STOL planes.
Considering the total program cost, one wonders if a VTOL F-35 plus slightly smaller carriers really is cheaper than skipping that model entirely and using the R&D money to build slightly bigger carriers with catapult launchers and arrestor wire gear?
While this seems like a good idea in theory, in practice there are some serious hurdles.
- Adding catapult launchers and arrestor wires adds a lot to the requirements. It's not just a matter of making the ship bigger, you need to provide the power for those catapults. Here's a RAND study that looks at alternative carrier designs that has some information on the costs: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2006.html
- Even if you decide to build these bigger carriers and phase out the LHDs, that takes time. It would take decades, during which you have no fixed wing aircraft you can launch from your LHDs, unless you want to try and revive the Harrier jet program as a stopgap.
- Keep in mind the F-35B (the STOVL variant) is meant to replace the Harrier, so it makes sense to compare the F-35B to the Harrier instead of the F-18 or F-16. The Harrier also had poor availability rates and reliability issues. While the F-35B is worse, it is continuing to improve. And it has both stealth and is capable of supersonic flight, which the Harrier was not. In fact, the F-35B is the first production STOVL aircraft capable of supersonic flight.
- An STOVL aircraft can be used from more than just LHDs. They can be launched from short, improvised airfields on the ground. The marines could potentially operate them from parking lots or just open fields. That's actually a part of some new doctrine the marines are working on, where they maintain a series of rotating, distributed air fields closer to the enemy rather than concentrating their forces on a ship which is easier to detect and potentially more vulnerable. Here's some more information: https://www.mccdc.marines.mil/Portals/172/Docs/MCCDC/young/M...
> - Adding catapult launchers and arrestor wires adds a lot to the requirements. It's not just a matter of making the ship bigger, you need to provide the power for those catapults. Here's a RAND study that looks at alternative carrier designs that has some information on the costs: https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR2006.html
Thanks. So from that report we see the estimated savings from dropping one EMALS (the fancy new electric catapults) is $160M, presumably including the extra power to run it. So for a smaller carrier with, say, two catapults, the difference between a STOVL option and a catapult one would be, say, roughly $.5B (allowing some extra for the arrestor wires etc.). Now, based on a quick web search, the price difference between the F-35B and F-35C is around $10M. So if you have an air wing of 35 planes (wikipedia lists 36 F-35B for the new British carriers, and 30-40 Rafale's for the current French carrier, so 35 is probably a good ballpark figure for a smaller carrier), that's already a $350M difference, almost making up for the extra cost in the carrier itself. Now factor in the avoidance of the R&D cost for the STOVL variant, that the F-35C is a significantly more capable plane, and finally that over the life of the carrier you're likely to see several generations of planes used. This reinforces my preconceived notion that the F-35B development program made no sense.
> - Even if you decide to build these bigger carriers and phase out the LHDs, that takes time. It would take decades, during which you have no fixed wing aircraft you can launch from your LHDs, unless you want to try and revive the Harrier jet program as a stopgap.
The USMC apparently has some historical reasons why they really want to operate their own fighters, but it does seem horribly expensive compared to the alternative of relying on the navy for support in that area.
> - Keep in mind the F-35B (the STOVL variant) is meant to replace the Harrier, so it makes sense to compare the F-35B to the Harrier instead of the F-18 or F-16.
Why? The enemy isn't going to give you any handicap points for operating a STOVL aircraft instead of a more capable 'traditional' one.
> - An STOVL aircraft can be used from more than just LHDs. They can be launched from short, improvised airfields on the ground.
Sure, that's an advantage. Is it enough to offset the disadvantages of a STOVL aircraft? I'm not convinced. Many traditional aircraft can also operate from improvised airfields, for instance made from a straight stretch of road.
We have plenty of supercarriers, and are building plenty more. That misses the point. The Marine amphibious assault ships serve an entirely different mission. Their size is a feature, not a limitation.
You need a much more expensive training pipeline to get pilots who can do arrestor wire landings and they need to keep practicing it, doing this also results in more accidents which result in the loss of the aircraft.
The VTOL system also allows a country to more easily switch pilots from being based on land to using the carrier.
> The UK has done the costings and VTOL is cheaper.
Sure, but that decision was made before the full trainwreckage of the F-35 was clear. In hindsight, with what we now know of the cost of the program, perhaps the decision would have swung the other way.
