From the Torygraph.
However Babcock's chief executive, Peter Rogers, said installing the catapult equipment and switching to the so-called carrier variant of the F35, rather than the VTOL version, would save the Government money in the long run.
Buying the carrier variant will allow the Ministry of Defence to greatly reduce the number of aircraft it has to buy and cut the cost of the planes by 25pc over their life-span, according to last month's Strategic Defence & Security Review.
"This version of the jet has a longer range and greater payload: this, not large numbers of aircraft, is the critical requirement for precision strike operations in the future," the review said.
So that's clear enough, (and some might call it stating the bleedin obvious) now just how was the VTOL version ever a worthwhile prospect?