It's so confused around here, people are stabbing each other in the chest...
It makes for an interesting picture. If the carriers slide by two years, to the point where they can go to sea from day one with Dave B - or with something else, in the still possible eventuality that Dave B is a lemon - the notion that JFH is a bridge to JSF goes away,
Then, with budgets limited, do I (in Torpy's situation) want to pay money to stretch out an old capability that is going away anyway... or cement in place my Tranche 3 Typhoon?
Maybe someone's looking very hard at what Typhoon can/will be versus Dave B. And one can argue all day about F-35A's performance versus other aircraft, but you can't avoid the implications of the fact that Dave B is almost 8000 pounds bigger in OEW than Typhoon, with the same fuel fraction, a little more thrust, a smaller wing and (in stealth mode) a war-winning 2000 lb offensive load. And, if you read the charts, not that much better in non-stealth mode. In short, a complete, unmitigated pig.
And while the STOVL capability - which adds double-digit per cent to the price tag, costs me 25-30 per cent of my range and halves my internal weapon load - is crucial to a sea-based or joint RAF-Navy force, from the RAF's viewpoint it is marginal. No, this is not an aircraft to operate off roads or a soccer field - it's an F-4-sized jet and every sortie takes a Chinook-load of gas.
Add to this the fact that the UK is locked into Typhoon by the mechanism that the UK, Italy and Spain designed to lock the Germans in, and yes, I'd be guarding my Typhoons too.
Watch the same thing happening in the USAF: is the F-35 so good that we want to mortgage our entire future on it? So few F-22s that we can't afford to develop upgrades, and a new bomber God knows when?
Fasten your seat-belts...