SSSETOWTF,
Firstly, I think it a shame that you should personally denigrate Sweetman, who I know to be a fellow PPRuNer.
Secondly, I don't think that you should compare Bill Sweetman with John Nichol.
Sweetman does do some mass-market stuff (though describing it as "mass-market trite of little technical rigour" is unfair, in my view), but his work for Jane's (and now Av Week) is at a different and much more impressive level, anyway. And while he may not have the same grasp of the detail on a given programme as a particular programme insider, he does have excellent contacts, and his grasp of the politics and economics of JSF is exemplary. He has armfuls of Aviation Journalist of the Year Trophies, to the extent that the rest of us know that if his name is on the shortlist, it's time for a fixed grin and no need to write an acceptance speech!
To accuse him of writing according to "who bought him lunch" is disgraceful, and utterly wrong - there are few aerospace journos who are as rigorously independent as Bill is, and it's as offensive as suggesting that you have spent too long being brainwashed by your current paymasters, and too long imbibing the Lockmart cool aid. And that would be offensive, as you are clearly an extremely sharp operator, and a decent and honourable chap. I'm too old to have PPRuNe heroes, but both Bill and you are on a very short list of exceptions to that rule. What a pity you two don't have some mutual respect, even if you disagree.
And I say all of that as someone who believes that if we're going to buy a carrier at all, then a STOVL JSF is clearly and irrefutably the best option to equip its air wing. With a 12 FJ squadron RAF, it's utterly essential that those squadrons allocated to the carrier are flexibly available to do other things. The training burden associated with keeping current for cat-and-trap would mean that carrier ops would effectively be a full-time job for these squadrons, and that would effectively mean two fewer RAF FJ units, and four fewer FJ squadrons capable of sharing the routine operational burden.
It's clear that blokes like Dan Robinson are convinced that F-35B will make good, and that it will do what it says on the tin, and I'm not inclined or qualified to contradict him.
But equally, no-one has reassured me that JSF's costs are under control yet, let alone that the UK will know what it's paying, nor exactly what capabilities it will and won't be getting, when it's required to commit to the programme. Even if you accept the bland reassurances we've been given about op sovereignty and ITAR (and there's nowhere near enough detail or unequivocal guarantee to reassure this tax-payer) this has got to be a worry, while the complete lack of a STOVL competitor to F-35B concerns me, too. And neither Tom Burbage nor George Standridge have been able to reassure me on these programme issues, even if the aircraft is 'technically' and operationally compelling.
And I'd congratulate Modern Elmo on his succinct summary of the real objection to JSF and CVF. "(5) I 'm not sure that aircraft carriers are the UK's top military hardware priority, whether or not the proposed aircraft carriers have catapults and arrester gear."