F-35 Cancelled, then what ?

[Not_a_boffin]

A bit more context on the Select Ctte evidence session might be useful here.

At that stage, the costings for the programme were almost entirely based on the original concept designs for the ships - the famed 40000 tonners - done in 1997. Those concept designs were just that - concepts to assist in sizing the budget for the programme, they did not represent definitive designs and if memory serves, the original programme cost back then was £2.8Bn. There were some assumptions in there - including absence of a 1 or 2* command facility (or indeed AAWC function) which were assumed to be covered by an accompanying T45 or similar. Nor was there to be any significant self-defence capability - some had suggested fitting PAAMS which goes against all lessons learned with US and UK carriers over the years. So, for some VSO the idea that the ship was just a big box with aircraft in it was what stuck. When you think about designing and installing combat systems, those VSO were thinking steel is cheap and air is free compared to electronics - and by and large, that is correct.

Round about the same time, the two competing Prime teams were beginning to design the real ships, based on proposed flypros with real consideration of sortie numbers, package sizes and deck management. These included STOVL and CTOL (and even STOBAR) variants, at which point it started to become clear that the concept 40000 tonners would not meet the requirement and would have to get bigger - even the STOVL ships - to the point that the difference between STOVL and CTOL in size, long seen as a big discriminator, actually became much less important. Which ultimately led to the "adaptable" carrier concept as a hedge against the failure of the STOVL F35 variant. The unfortunate part during this element was that the programme cost was never revised up to reflect the bigger ships, which led to an unfortunate impasse in 2001/2002 when the Primes presented their initial prices, which exceeded the budget by around £600M - for the programme - if memory serves. Thus began an extended series of prevarications where MoD tried to get the cost designed down, while not paying the primes to keep their teams together, all against the backdrop of various brown jobs loudly asking why the ships couldn't just be CVS repeats, because obviously they were much bigger than CVS. At which point the political deferrals and the real cost growth began.

In one sense carriers are less complex than destroyers and frigates, in that if you've designed your flight and hangar deck correctly, you are generally not constrained in fitting all the other elements required into the ship. Surface combatants tend to have much greater competition and conflict between systems and features and much smaller margins and envelopes in which to work. On a carrier, vertical routes for munitions are a particular pain, EMI topsides can cause issues and trying to deconflict accommodation from flight and hangar deck working space noise can be tricky, but in general you have enough room to fit them in. It's just a long list of things to remember, which as Engines alludes to, we hadn't done in decades. The teams (and MoD) did get plenty of help from NAVSEA and NAVAIR and plenty of ship visits to US ships (and CdG), but it's one thing seeing an arrangement, quite another understanding how and why it works. The aviation arrangements on the ships will eventually turn out to be a real eye-opener for both UK (and possibly USN) aircrew and engineers, compared to what they've been used to. Much of that will be the result of designing around a large multi-type TAG from the start.