By the way, the US Navy manual sheds some more light on the real needs for carrier currency. http://www.navyair.com/LSO_NATOPS_Manual.pdf

Their Initial Carrier Qualification is set at 12 day landings (10 arrested) and 8 night landings (6 arrested).
After achieving currency, you maintain it by refreshing it with a number of landings depending on how much time has passed from your last currency.

If you’ve last been current 30 to 59 days ago, you do some Field Landing Carrier Practice and 1 daytime arrested landing to achieve day currency. You have to add 3 more (another one arrested) and then do a night landing to be also night current.

If you’ve been current 60 days to 6 months ago, you need to do some Field Landing Carrier Practice ashore with the LSO directing you, and then make 4 day landings, 2 to 3 of them being arrested, and 2 night landings within 36 or 48 hours to be again day/night current.

If more than 12 months have passed since your last currency, you go through Initial Carrier Qualification again.

Liger has a well known love of the RN

I have a well known love for all three services, actually, even if people insists not to believe it. But this is another story.
“Love” does not mean that i obligatorily have to think of things in a certain way: i do not like what has been done in the years with the demise of carrier air and the management of the Harrier story.
I still wonder how the hell the RAF could promise Storm Shadow and Brimstone for the Harrier under the GR9 upgrade for 10 years, 1996-2006/7 and then integrate none of the two weapons, and use the lack of them to argue hard for chopping the Harrier and screw the navy of its only fixed wing component once and for all.
I am entitled to my opinion, i think, and a lot of things that have happened in the last two decades stink.

Regarding B and C F35s, the DoD report into development and testing for 2011 came out. The F35B is still plagued by serious problems and is 9% behind schedule. F35A is 11% behind schedule, F35C is 32% ahead of schedule, even if as we know it has some issues of its own to fix. We must, of course, look at the 32% ahead of schedule data with the awareness that the C is the variant who entered trials last. The other two variants are ahead of the F35C with their programs of development, testing and validation.
However, they are lagging considerably in terms of test points cleared, while the F35C has cleared 32% more test points than planned, which is very reassuring. Having started later also means that more corrections have been incorporated into the C at build, thanks to discoveries made on the other two variants.

The C variant has 1002 test flights left to go, and 12.442 test points yet to clear.
The A still has 827 flights and 10.257 test points to go.
The B 1,437 flights and 15.045 points.

These values of course change rather frequently when a change proves necessary and needs to be flown and trialed, adding new flights and points to clear to the count, but they are indicative of the current plan.

As to the F35B trials at sea on USS Wasp, which were presented by the STOVL prophets as having proven that the B has “no issues” and that the jet blast hazard claims were “nonsense” and that everything actually works perfectly well, well, the reality is actually a bit different. The F35B jet blast does not hole the deck as someone had (rather extremely) prophetized, no, but a jet blast issues exists and the trials at sea only confirmed it. A 75 feet danger radius is reported. This is going, along with SBRVL, to ruin the day of the “working assault helicopters and jet planes from the same hull works better if the plane is STOVL”. The advantages of the F35B in this sense are steadily reducing.

Also, can’t remember who said, once more, that you can’t use a CATOBAR carrier for something like CEPP and landing marines with helicopters.
It’s ********. USS Kitty Hawk in 2001 served as Afloat Base for the US Army special ops helicopter regiment and launched waves of soldiers and SF into Afghanistan by helo while keeping up fixed wing ops with some 600 sorties flown with 8 to 12 F/A-18 routinely embarked and working from her.

Regarding the F35B, the DoD report says, among other things:

In October 2011, the program successfully conducted initial
amphibious ship trials with STOVL aircraft in accordance with
the new, restructured plan for 2011; however, significant work
and flight tests remain to verify and incorporate modifications
to STOVL aircraft required to correct known STOVL
deficiencies and prepare the system for operational use.

Jet blast from the F-35Bs is expected to produce unsafe forces
on flight deck personnel up to 75 feet from the short take-off
line.

This bit appears in the LHA-6 America part of the report.

The program halted F-35B durability testing at the end of
last year when a wing carry-through bulkhead cracked before
2,000 hours of airframe life. The required airframe lifetime
is 8,000 hours. Repair of the bulkhead on the test article was
completed in November 2011, and F-35B durability testing is
scheduled to restart in January 2012.
• Following the bulkhead crack in the F-35B test article,
analysis verified the existence of numerous other
life‑limited parts on all three variants. The program began
developing plans to correct these deficiencies in existing
aircraft by repair/modifications, and designing changes
to the production process. The most significant of these
in terms of complexity, aircraft downtime, and difficulty
of the modification required for existing aircraft is the
forward wing root rib on the F-35A and F-35B aircraft.
All production aircraft in the first five lots will need the
modification before these aircraft reach 1,000 hours.
• The program also halted F-35A durability testing after the
F-35B bulkhead crack and restarted it at the end of May 2011.
The test article restarted testing in November 2011, after
completing inspections subsequent to accomplishing
3,000 effective flight hours of testing. During the second
1,000‑hour block of testing, the wing root rib failed, as
predicted. The test team is able to continue airframe fatigue
testing in the near-term, while analysis determines when and
how to repair the test article.
• F-35C structural testing completed all structural test
objectives in August 2011, including planned “drop tests” in
preparation for simulated carrier trials. Durability testing is
scheduled to begin in Spring 2012.

Read the DoD report here for the whole list of issues and things to fix. All the variants have still quite a bit of road to travel, but the B remains the one in the worst state: http://www.dote.osd.mil/pub/reports/FY2011/

Under DoD programs, F35 section.

they need to give the RAF their Deep Strike budget back

Are we sure it is really necessary? Is there a valid strategic reason for a dedicate fleet of platforms for Deep Strike, in addition to the eventual CATOBAR-focused strike force?
I’m far from convinced, personally. The carrier strike force of 3/4 squadrons could well do the attack from a land base if it ever was necessary/advantageous. I think it’s undeniable that a carrier pilot normally has no issue working from land, while a land pilot has troubles working at sea.

In a tight financial environment, with the naval strike force able to do land ops, while land strike force can’t readily do naval work, my choice goes for the first, not for the ugly, risky compromise of land air doing brief visits at sea.

Besides, there is long-term funding and planning for UCAVs already, for the RAF. How many different Tornado replacements there have to be…?
Instead of investing a billion in dubious sons of FOAS, can we listen to EADS and give a look to their proposal of palletizing cruise missiles for extraction from the back of cargo planes? As many as 12 Storm Shadow deployed from an A400, at thousands of miles of distance from home, with no AAR. Sounds like the typical “good enough” solution that gets ignored because it is not shiny nor pointy.

For comparison purposes, the French “Livre Blanc de la defense” advocates a 13,5 sqn Adla/MN fleet backed up by 300 airframes.

Grossly outdated. Expect that to change in the 2012 Livre Blanc update due to come out. The 300 figure was based on a long term ambition of 234 Air force Rafales and 60 Navy Rafales.
As of now, there’s a total of 180 Rafales delivered/to come, and of 108 Rafale yet to be delivered there’s talk of eventually getting just 91. The Indian order is unlikely to magically change the picture for France, either.

A more recent target for 2022 of the Armee de l’air is to have 225 fast jets, of which 67 or so would be upgraded Mirage 2000D. A figure that is seen as increasingly unlikely, while a “worst case” figure of 150 has started to circulate, since Rafale orders are at risk and the Mirage upgrade itself has not yet taken solid shape.

And the Naval aviation is going on with around 30 Rafales, some of which still at F1 (AA only) standard and 27 old Super Etendards, soon to go. There’s, i believe, a total of 48 Rafale M delivered/on order, and 3 have been lost. That means potentially as few as 45 airplanes.
With a rumored 50 F35 buy, you can get a naval strike element as effective as France’s, in theory. Which would not be bad at all.

I’m sorry Liger but this is perfect illustration of the underlying problem with much of the pro-CATOBAR argument.

While from my point of view your comment is the patronizing, old, annoying story of “we gotta go STOVL of the world ends”, “CATOBAR’s only reason is for pretending we are the USN”, “training requirements will kill us all” and all that story that gets shoved down our ears again and again and again.

Its all really good, first-class, kit but there is not enough of it to cover all the taskings.

This is another story, and not for this thread in any case.
By the way, I’m still waiting for people to justify the need for a guided missile destroyer or frigate to chase drug smugglers in the caribbean or wooden dhows in Somalia when there is only three warlike tasks that should be covered by full size, full capability warships:

Fighting wars when they start, which includes escorting the carrier and amphibs that do make a dent in said conflict

Scare the argentinians

Patrol the Gulf

For the rest, i’m waiting for MHPC. When in place of minesweepers there’s globally-deployable patrol vessels, the stretch on the warfighting fleet will be gone.

For the very last time, I promise, STOVL shares the costs with the RAF and, at the same time, gives them the ability to deploy first rate strike to forward short-field basing. The planes are bought to do a job….these days mostly being a lifeline to the poor bloody infantry in some dusty hellhole in the back of beyond. I was as proud as hell of the lads in NSW when they were flying out of Kandahar doing the job they are meant to….bollox to it that they werent flying from the ship it doesnt matter….they were covering our lads on the ground and thats the job. Carrier Strike keeps a minimum complement on the ship for contingency ops and has the rest of the fighters were they can be best employed….thats just good inventory management…when we are so tight on resources its simple bloody common sense!.

Are you saying that CATOBAR airplanes wouldn’t be used in support of operations? That the RAF can’t be made to deliver CATOBAR current pilots? That the RAF does not give a flying ****?
Because naval, CATOBAR airplanes have provided as much as80% of the sorties flown over Afghanistan in the 2001 ops and a large share of the total sorties in the decade and i have no doubts that had the UK had CATOBAR planes they would have been employed as well.
Perhaps leaving the deck empty, perhaps at least in part flying from the ship like US Navy and French airplanes. But they would have answered to the needs of the moment just as readily.

As to the training penalty, how comes that the french naval pilots keep CATOBAR current flying on average less training hours than RAF land based pilots?
How can they get their pilots converted from T-45 Goshawk, flown in the US, to Rafale, with as few as 12 hours in the simulator?
How could they do so well with Rafale M in Libya when their second Rafale squadron has yet to stand up?
How can they re-certify currency to their pilots with the very terrifying figure of 6 day-time traps and 4 night-time traps?
Is it really that hard to simulate CATOBAR landing at the end of each training sortie from a land base? The French do it without wires, on a rather standard runway, with a light guidance system like that of the carrier mounted on wheels. http://rafalenews.blogspot.it/2012/01/rafale-m-carrier-landing-training-at.html
Does not seem like Hell set loose.
How can they meet so well their training needs with a Joint Air Force/Navy squadron, and with training in the US for the naval pilots http://www.dutchaviationsupport.com/Articles/RafaleM-UK.pdf, while for the UK it would be so much more complex.
Are you really saying that british personnel couldn’t do the same? I don’t think the french are supermen. If they can do it, others should be able to as well. Besides, the F35 is supposed to come with the most advanced simulators ever, and up to 50% of training will be done on sims, so it should definitely be able to match Rafale in this aspect.

How many STOVL landings did a certification require with the Harrier, by the way? Someone knows?

Saying that CATOBAR can’t be made to work is, to me, complete bollock and scaremongering.

I would have expected better from a former Harrier GR pilot, even one who has been out of a frontline cockpit for more than a decade, since any Harrier man should be only too aware of the inherent flexibility and versatility of STOVL, and in particular of the lack of training burden imposed by taking a STOVL jet on board the boat.
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You are saying what you want him to say / what you believe he should say. That’s not how it works.

Unless the US Navy is paying him money to support a CVF Catobar decision in the Uk, and i don’t this is the case, if he says what he says we have to assume that he is expressing an opion informed by his own first-hand experience.
And we have to assume that he does not see all the advantages you see in STOVL.
Or that anyway he judges them insufficient to support a STOVL course of action.

Coming from an Harrier pilot, i find it twice as impressive.

On an interesting side note for Liger30 Italy almost operated Polaris alongside the UK.

Oh, i know. The helicopter cruisers Vittorio Veneto and Andrea Doria had 4 and 2 Polaris launch tubes each, if i remember correctly, back at the time in which there was a talk of creating a NATO-wide, NATO-owned deterrent in addition to the US one.

Instead the tubes ended up empty all of their lives, and the Royal Navy was gutted by the government as the government turned the money flow to SSBN.

The reality is that we don’t have a clue about what REALLY is happening, and this debate is entirely pointless.

which is not having permanently assigned naval squadrons like the way everyone else does it.

Depends on how you read the government statement “routinely embark a squadron of 12 airplanes”.
RAF crews or not, depending on what they intend for routine, with 3 or even 4 squadrons they will effectively be all naval-role squadrons to sustain the presence of one squadron aboard “routinely”.