Orca,
Can't talk to Marham and the servicing that goes on there sorry. If any Tonka mates are on here that can clarify, maybe your point will be validated. I can, however, speak to the others you present:
Holbeach and Donna are completely irrelevant to F-35 ops. The aircraft will not carry any weapons that would offer any training advantage to dropping in these letterbox-size range complexes. The 323 complex and those further north are segregated restricted airspace to allow tactical training without worrying about avoiding civil traffic. They are of sufficient dimension to allow F-35 to carry out tactical manoeuvres and, therefore, are adequate for 'most' day-to-day training in most of the roles. You raise a valid point about overland training - this will, of course, be required in some but not all training missions. With a 450nm combat radius there are few parts of the UK mainland that could not be reached on any given sortie. Add in air-air refuelling and you've got considerable opportunity to swing between the multitude of F-35 mission roles it is designed to perform. Again, there are arguably many better placed airfields but we either don't own them any more, won't own them in the near future (congratulations British Army
) or they require an additional cost to get them to the standard necessary to operate such a complicated jet.
Lossie was the other viable alternative out of around 3 or 4 - factors such as the noise footprint of STOVL made it attractive. We changed variant, the noise issue went away and then we decided to put Typhoon at Lossie so Marham/Lakenheath have become the focus. I don't see anything changing from that now.
Fly safe