Or provide an easy target for complete cancellation of both carriers and associated naval fighter, so saving a whole bunch of capital and operating costs to be spent wisely on other deserving causes instead. I don't think it automatically follows that there would be an immediate substitute. Much easier to 'kick the can down the road' as our American friends are fond of saying, maybe until SDSR 2020, or whenever.
I therefore hope F35B happens. Not because I am bowled over by it but because the alternative could easily be much, much worse.
I would have gone cat&trap with Super Hornets (on lease if feasible) pending greater certainty of both cost and performance of F35. But we are past that now. If it was £2bn to fit EMALS 3 months ago, it will be an even bigger number and more delay now.
LF
I totally agree. F35B going means two mothballed/sold (but to who) aircraft carriers and no more UK fixed wing air. There is no extra budget to do it unless you want to bin the T26, MHPC replacement (patrol vessel/minehunter/survey ship) and the Merlin based Seaking ASac replacement which would be a decision of monumentally towering stupidity.
Anyway EMALS is a non starter for us. Just based on when we started building our carriers. It's still testing and won't be certified aboard G Ford until 2015 (assuming nothing goes wrong
) well past when the QE will be complete and nearing the final stages of stitching POW together. When Converteam had the rug pulled on the UK version of EMALS which had been in protype form and test for quite a while and no funding you knew Cats and traps was off the menu.
SDSR was always a daft decision purely because it effectively deleted one carrier. You have to have at least two preferably three to do 365 day 24/7 carrier ops. SDSR would have had one carrier and one brand new one in mothballs/sold making it almost pointless. The time to go CATOBAR would have been before the steel was cut. The design allows space for cats and traps to be fitted (steam based with boilers, which was rejected anyway as being too hard on the airframes and being inefficient what with the ships being all electric) doesn't mean it'd be cheap with two complete ships so getting it into the design before build was the time to do it. Add in the extra delay to the RN getting the ships and potential risk associated and you just know the capability would be deleted.