Bastardeaux,
I certainly didn't mean to suggest that I thought the -B was inferior, it's just different. I flew the -B a fair bit, and spent many hours in the sim 'flying' the -C and I much preferred the -B. They're both about the same empty weight (i.e. the weight penalty for STOVL is the same as the weight penalty for CV). But humping around all that extra 3 tonnes of fuel makes the -C fly differently. It's like the difference between flying an F-3 or Harrier with the drop tanks on compared to the clean config. But the -C does glide much further if you were ever to lose the donk.
I'm nowhere near clever enough to know or understand all the cost projections and estimates. Big picture though, the SDSR quoted 3.4 billion savings by switching to the -C, but I believe that included the savings from chopping the Harrier and eliminating the DPOC and only represented a cash saving of around 600 million (if memory serves). Since the cost estimates of putting the cats and traps into the PoW have ballooned from 800 million to 1.8 billion, that's certainly wiped out the up front 'saving' of switching to the -C. Curiously, the switch from -B to -C was made accepting the notion that we'd mothball the QE so only ever have one carrier with 150-200 days/year availability, which hardly sounds like an increase in overall Carrier Strike capability to me, even if the -C can go further than the -B.
The SDSR also assumed and relied on the notion that the defence budget would increase after 2015 in order to meet its extant planning assumptions for Future Force 2020. So the MoD still has a funding hole until at least the end of the decade, which makes it nigh on impossible to think about buying new aircraft types. If we decide against cats and traps now, we're probably not missing out on capability for a decade or 2. If the MoD gets rich enough in 20 years time to be able to afford E2Ds, C2s, F-18 tankers, T-45 trainers, X-45/X-47s then couldn't we modify the ships for cats during the normal refit cycle?
If the certified smart guys at Dstl say that you need to buy 138 -Bs or -92 -Cs (can't remember the exact numbers), personally I'd say that was another compelling reason to go for the -B. Wouldn't you rather see 4 operational squadrons of F-35 in UK markings rather than 3? The cliche of numbers having a quality of their own springs to mind.
Landing the -C on a ship is fundamentally no different from landing an F-18. It'll take constant training, you'll rack up the fatigue life of the jets whether you're embarked or not, you'll probably end up with an LSO empire and it makes us dependent on the US for our initial carrier training. Landing the -B on a ship is almost trivial by comparison. There truly will be an almost negligible training burden for embarked ops (from the pilot's stand-point), so there really is no need to thrash the clutch and lift system while you're shore-based. So I'm skeptical about all the accuracy of through-life cost projections that assume 50% of all -B landings will involve using the clutch etc. It also means that -B pilots can spend almost every minute of their time training to hit targets and not worrying about becoming 'Centurions' who have successfully landed on a ship 100 times.
As I said before, I'm pretty type-agnostic, but I lean towards the -B for these reasons. As long as we buy a reasonable number of F-35s I don't really mind what variant they are, or whether they say 'Royal Navy' or 'Royal Air Force' down the side. Let's not forget that, -B or -C, you still get the radar (that is so good that it makes you giggle like a school kid the first time you use it), the EOTS, the DASS, the MADL, the fusion, an awesome cockpit, and the LO capability.
Sorry for rambling on again. Regards all,
Single Seat, Single Engine, The Only Way To Fly!