TC,
As I already mentioned, procurement decisions such as this one have a nasty habit of having very little to do with military expediency and much more to do with politics.
I agree totally.
And as I also said, you can wrap yourself up in projected performance figures until you go blue in the face, but the Whitehall bean counters might not see things in quite the same way.
I'm not wrapping myself up in figures. My own view is that the F-35 will in some areas (eg avionics and obviously LO) be far superior to the Typhoon. However, I don't think it'll be quite the same panacea as some think and it seems clear to me that navalising Typhoon is a non-starter.
Firstly, it'll be such a small production run as to prove very expensive. Secondly, the structural and FCS mods would be costly, risky and erode key areas of Typhoon's current excellent performance. History suggests that navalising a land based aircraft rarely works.
Clearly, the F-35 is still immature and still faces some problems, political and technical. However, F-35B or C offers the best solution for UK maritime air power. If it fails, I suspect that a lease of FA-18E/F would occur until a UCAV capability could be obtained.
I would also agree regarding the importance of LO being overstated. However, as more nations potentially purchase capable double digit SAM systems, the need to operate in very high threat areas during a conventional conflict will probably see it's importance increase.
Other than that, I think we'll just have to agree to disagree!
Regards,
MM