As a very minimum we should get five or six Hornets flying this year to train aircrew and ground crew. Simulated landings, wave-offs and arrestor wire misses could be simulated on a suitably marked runway. Take-off disorientation would need some easy way of applying the required acceleration. There are several possible methods and I would suggest JATO (RATO) as the simplest.
Then we would have a nucleus of trained personnel with serviceable aircraft that can fly missions either from land or from friendly carriers.
Yes, of course this is CTOL. Nobody seriously expects Dave-B to appear in any usable quantities, do they?