What STOVL carrier are you referring too ?

Queen Elizabeth..
and i meant RN not RAN.. bad habit.

With the success of Op Corporate as the baseline I think its fair to say that ‘failed experiment’ could never be applied to the conceptual Harrier-carrier/CVS/Sea Control Ship. The idea of airpower-where-there-would-be-none-otherwise was proven beyond all shadow of doubt. The interesting observation though is the way that one aircraft, and its compactness, has defined the ship and the eventual decline of that aircraft has seen a step change in the way that naval services have moved the concept forward.

The evolution path to F-35B is clear enough for STOVL players and its one that now needs deep pockets and bigger decks than before. So the lighter end of the market, as a fast-jet platform, is gone. No more 15,000ton Chakri’s or Garibaldi’s. Its now best part of 30,000tons before you have long enough pants to sit in on the fastjet game.

What has changed though, and what will blur the picture, is the ESTOL/VTOL/VATOL resurgence. V-22, AW609, V-280, TERN, etc all offer abilities far in excess of what a traditional rotary wing delivers. TERN alone offers the potential for a game-changing distributed capability.

Mating a lightweight AESA panel technology, like Leonardo’s Osprey, to a AW609 or TERN type platform and that platform on to a modest hull like the Algerian BDSL or the TKMS MHD/MRD and you start to see a lot of air and sea control potential for a very modest spend….relative to full CATOBAR or even high sortie-rate F-35B STOVL naval tacair. If TERN actually produces an air vehicle capable of weapons deployment you start to look at small-but-technically-competent navies actually being able to gain a sustainable, albeit limited-threat scenario, naval strike capability off little more than a warmed over LHD and a few drones.

Harrier carrier may be all but gone and F-35B a big boys toy…..but the early Harriers mantle of the cheap, lightweight, naval air capability might soon be more common place than it ever has been.

so in other words it seems that you’re saying that the earlier harrier carriers were limited (perhaps not really needed by many of those countries operating them, but it led to something better.. bigger 35B carriers on mid range size ships with more options and capabilities

I am with Rii on this..

– completely separate F-36 STOVL variant, only utilizing electronics and software from the F-35
– F119 powerplant
– lower weight, slimmer profile, no 2k lbs internal bomb requirement
– no concurrency
– operational F-35s in 2010, with limited sensor fusion, maybe APG-82 radar, EOTS/EODAS + helmet in later blocks
– additional ~200-300 F-22s
– hire more Gilmores

hmm I like Rii’s idea too. this makes 4 people.
Ditch the STVOL F-35. Maybe the resulting aircraft would look like a single engined F-22 or the FC-31
although not sure if making another stvol aircraft is necessary (its relevancy, etc).

F-36. you mean based on the x-36?