Guys,
Perhaps I can help here.
For all sorts of good budgetary reasons, the DoD has to make assumptions about how often the F-35 variants will be doing certain things. Take offs, landings, carrier landings, weapons carriage, weapon drops, STOVL ops, etc. - it's a long list and made more complex by the three variants. But these are 'assumptions', and no more. Their relationship to what is actually going to happen is approximately zero. And when those sorts of sums are being done, there are big differences between 'sortie' driven events and 'flight time' driven events. Oh, and sometimes people can get those sums wrong.
Where I think one is mistaken is to take a predicted percentage (sortie or flight time) spent in STOVL mode and then try to extrapolate a required F-35B force size from it.
To my mind (and I'm totally relaxed if anyone disagrees) the USMC has made the case to the DoD and the politicians for a STOVL capable force.(and no, they didn't get there by shouting 'Marines!' or 'Guadalcanal!' - sorry, you need to see how they actually operate within DoD and Congress - it's a little more mature than that). They have a well developed and ambitious future doctrine mapped out, available for anyone to read. In my view, almost any Air Force will disagree with it. That's because the Marines aren't interested in 'Air Power' for it's own sake. They are only interested in supporting the Marine on the ground as quickly and effectively as possible.
To do that, the F-35B needs to be able to go to the fight on L class ships and operate off short strips. That means STOVL. They need a force of F-35Bs that can do that STOVL thing sustainably. They've made those calculations, which have been scrutinised to death at all levels within the DoD (including the Joint Staffs) and Congress, and signed off. They are certainly more robust than the arguments used to justify, oh, let's think of an example - 232 Typhoons.
Anyway, just my musings - feel free to keep on at percentages, it's an open forum. But I don't think anyone's getting much out of the process.
LO. I get the ski-jump/deck space argument, thanks - my point in my previous post. You are right about pressures on LHD/LHA space and well deck omissions - and there are certainly 'Big carrier, Small Carrier' tensions within the US naval aviation community. In my direct experience, these are mostly driven by fears within the 'big carrier' community that a more capable 'small carrier' would be more attractive to politicians. Personally, I don't think that adding a ski jump to an L class to give an F-35 a few thousand pounds more fuel/weapons is part of the budget/political argument. But I could be wrong.
Best Regards as ever to all those who 'get' STOVL and what the USMC are trying to do. And best regards to all those who don't.
Engines