Sure they could but that would result in a supercruising monster or the F119 doesn’t make sense. 😉
Let’s take the F-22 as starting point, which has maybe a 550-600nm radius. So you obviously would want to increase that way beyond the 35s 700-750nm. Doing that adds a lot of weight. Plus carrier capability, second cockpit, and high lift devices to bring down approach speed all adds up. My guess is you’d quickly become too heavy/big for naval use.
What’s wrong with a supercruising monster?
I suppose you could the latest and greatest F110-132’s, but they produce ~ 3,000lbs less thrust and weigh ~500lbs more than the F119 – and as you say weight is an issue for naval aircraft.
I’d want to stay about the size of an F-14, which is larger than a F-22. The proposed F-22N was deemed impractical due to high wing loading and gross weight. However, a new design could optimized from the start for CV operations. You could use a variable sweep wing like the F-14, or a large wing more like the F-35C to obtain the desired approach speed.
A few weeks ago I ran across a master’s thesis by a Marine pilot who advocated a 2-crew F-35 for their FAC(A) requirement. He makes a strong argument for 2-crewman concept in general. I maintain it is absolute requirement for strike aircraft for both current (designating targets and guiding PGM’s) and future (managing UCAV’s) requirements.
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