Madbob,
Good question on the ski jump landing gear loads - perhaps I can help.
The landing gear layouts on the Harrier and the F-35 are fundamentally different, especially in the nose leg area. The Harrier has a 1950s style 'bicycle' or 'tandem' layout, and the weight of the aircraft is split almost 50/50 between the aft leg (we called the 'main') and the forward leg (which we called the 'nose leg').
What this meant for Harrier ski jump ops was that the front leg was fairly heavily loaded. We increased the liquid spring pressure for ski jump ops, and the limiting condition was to avoid total closure of the nose leg spring as it reached the end of the ski jump. (The leg started closing as it entered the ramp, and closed steadily as it approached the exit lip).
The F-35 has a more conventional 'tricycle' layout, with the two main gears taking around 90% of the load, the nose leg taking around 10%. The early checks on ski jump profiles and predicted launch speeds showed that the nose leg loads during ski jump launches were well within the highest design load, which was driven (I think) by vertical landings, with an arrival on the nose leg as the worst case, or with high lateral drift. the forthcoming tests at Pax will provide the real data.
LO's point about lift plus lift/cruise options for STOVL aircraft points to a key aspect of the JSF/F-35 project. The basic physics of powerplant technology have driven the choices available to the teams who were required to produce a large single engined single seat aircraft. (As I've posted a few times, the single engine requirement was a key driver set by US DoD staffs who wanted to avoid the weight and cost overruns associated with a slew of failed US twin engined projects in the 70s and 80s).
In the end, the Harrier concept (a large engine in the middle of the aircraft providing both lift and cruise via vectoring arrangements) just couldn't be taken forward to meet the JSF requirements. There wasn't enough lift at a reasonable weight from hot jets, and the hot gas ingestion problems were insurmountable. Lastly, having an engine in the middle of the aircraft just couldn't be reconciled with an effective supersonic strike/fighter aircraft. Kingston battled to produce a workable design all through the 70s and the 80s, and Boeing's X-32 proved the point.
The LM solution was built around a separate lift device located forward using cold air to deliver thrust as efficiently as possible, which also offered a solution to the hot gas ingestion problem. This allowed optimal location of the main engine at the rear. A number of options for driving the lift fan had been tested between the 60s and the 90s (including gas drive, and even electrical), but in the end, shaft drive offered the lightest and lowest volume solution.
As I've often posted, it's good that people question and criticise the F-35 programme. I hope that my posts help them understand the basic physics behind the issues and also to understand just how challenging the choices are that have to be made early on in a combat aircraft programme.
Best regards as ever to all those making the hard calls out there now,
Engines