Eurofighter a dud - London plans to reduce order for obsolescent fighter

[Exrigger]

So the government are saying, its either Tranche 3 Typhoon or Carrier Variant of F35, you cannot have both. Now lets look at a possible scenario:

The Government/MOD are not happy with the F35 that is being built due to technology exchange issues, cost escalation, delays to ISD, now another country has a similar aircraft to Typhoon that can be used on a carrier, Government/MOD ask the Typhoon consortium "can the Typhoon be modified to work off a carrier, how much will it cost and how long to convert a few". Consortium do a feasability study and it can be done at x cost, in y time, which is sooner than F35 and cheaper than F35, maybe we will call it Tranche 3..

So there is a possible reason why it is down to; Do you want F35 for the Carriers, or do you want a Carrier variant of Typhoon (Tranche 3), as you don't need/cannot afford both. Bearing in mind that this only a hypothesis.

Added before the people who have the proper gen start:

I am aware that Tranche 3 is another pre-planned upgrade to current planned capability though these may be rolled into Tranche 2, and various names for a carrier varient have been banded around like Sea Typhoon, Typhoon (N).