Have just listened to Hammond's video for the MoD, which appears to suggest that the ACA had completed the costing work and that the capability presumably meaning F35C (as opposed to the EMALS system) could not be delivered until 2023.
I remain convinced that the conversion costs must have all sorts of stuff clagged into them. It simply is not possible to absorb between 12 and 20M manhours converting the ships. However - it's done. As Widger says, we must get on with it and make sure it delivers carrier strike as opposed to a couple of weeks a year hopping on and off. If we get the second ship to operate on a one-up, one-off basis, then good stuff too.
However, there were a couple of jarring notes. The CEPP concept apparently requires operating helicopters and f/w at the same time - that sounds definitively like the end of LPH(RC). There was also some reference to being able to operate helos at the same time as f/w with STOVL, but not with CV. Fitting the rotor heads into a cyclic deck plan has always been difficult on CVN - however, they tend to have an awful lot more cabs to park on deck, limiting where helos can operate from. QEC even in CV configuration has a lot of deck area free, clear of the runway. Smells like looking for things to justify the decision, but only to be expected I suppose.
Glojo - no probs operating Wokka - although not the most deck friendly aircraft.
Widger - best definition of an aircraft carrier I ever heard was form Norman Friedman, who noted that "you don't buy a carrier to protect ships, you buy it to sit off a third-world sh1thole and threaten to burn it down".