Originally Posted by
Buster Hyman
Bearing in mind that there's many, many hoops to jump & modifications etc, etc. Could the F-35B come into the equation as launch platforms off the LHD's?
Back in the dunno the date but when Canberra came to town for its publicity tour I got a captains tour with XO and some of the media. That was a big question he said modifications had happened that removed some aspects of aviation like, smaller armories, removal of some ammunition elevators conversion of JP-5 to diesel. Nothing which is unfixable, the big thing its designed for harriers, fat amy is triple the size and and landing and take off ops where they pounding the same part of the deck all day every day is going to cause massive issues with structural strength. Also note at the time the deck couldn't take the jet blast of the fat amy engines. That has been somewhat fixed as decks were covered in new material to allow it take the lesser jet exhaust of V-22's. How much if any overlap with fat amy there is
Theres this video on it, generally well regarded
Personally if/when the spanish prove its practical, until then its a pipe dream and a waste of resources. Only real way I see australia getting in naval aviation would be buying a squadron of B and flying them of the british carriers and US Landing ships as a supporting force