Re: Weapons ready?
'Rolls Royce make the lift fan for the B variant. This would have been a big loss for them.'
Not a total loss though, the USMC are ordering ~twice as many F-35B as the UK not to mention Italian and Spanish requirements, and R-R make all the lift fans.
'The justification for buying only two carriers rather than the three required to be able to always have at least one available is the ability to "inter operate" with the French.'
Never heard that before, it was purely down to the number of sea days required. Bear in mind although we had 3 CVS one was almost always in extended refit, i.e. laid up with minimal crewing, rather than being in the usual operational cycle.
'The F35 B cannot take off vertically with any meaningful weapons or fuel load.'
No one ever said it could, neither could the Harrier, that's why there's a ski jump on the front end.
'There is no ski jump AWACS, so no safe operation away from ground based AWACS.'
That'll be why the RN have had rotary wing AWACS (technically ASAcS) since 1982 and which will be based on the Merlin airframe from around 2018.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
