The 80 per cent of flight time report is plain wrong. If it had been the basis of CAPE estimates over the years the Marines would have been inept to have missed it. But it wasn't.
The new figure is ten per cent of sorties, not flight time. Think about it. Even if every sortie is STOVL, is the jet going to be in STOVL for 12 minutes in a two-hour sortie? That also makes sense by comparison with "80 per cent" of sorties.
And that in turn clearly implies that most STOVL ops will be shipboard.
Disagree if you want, get personal if you can't control yourself, but use common sense.
Last edited by LowObservable; 17th Jan 2014 at 00:17.