One of the advantages of going back to the B is the fact that UK ramp and weapons requirements were always in the design spec.
There is a 12 degree ramp centre field at Pax River for testing, although it is a bit overgrown having been not required for the past 18 months. No launch's yet but I'm sure that a video will be available on the internet when it does happen. The Aussies may also be interested for their Canberra class.
During the 72 STOs and VLs conducted on the USS Wasp by the F-35B they did not all use the entire length of the deck, far from it in fact. The SHAR needed pretty much the full length of the deck to get up and no-one thought that was a problem.
On Ark in 2010 we had a USMC AV8B do a vertical takeoff from 1 spot to hop ashore to Cherry Point, due to a nose leg oleo issue which would have caused the problems JF details above. It was lightly fueled and clean under the wing but proved the power of the 408/107 Pegasus. Just because you have a ramp you don't have to use it!
