2805662,
The issue is the cost. Whilst fitting it might be possible, the cost of all the flight trials required - the A being a substantially different aerodynamic shape to the B or C plus any required software changes would not be cheap. Nor, I have no doubt, would LM's price for the design, regardless of the work they claim to have already undertaken. And as I said previously, the UK would be stuck with the entire costs.
Reference the discussion on the weight saving and additional fuel gained in removing the USRRSI would be practical as presumably during weight saving it designed to take structural loads and would have to be replaced within something as strong rather than a fuel tank, and having both might be advantageous.
Weren't a couple of Mks of the A-7 dual capable?
https://www.dodbuzz.com/2012/06/19/l...a-on-the-f-35/
Q: There was another component kerfuffle about a variant of this airplane: Canada had a little political dustup awhile back because its aerial refueling tankers use the probe-and-drogue system for its CF-18 Hornets. In that setup, the tanker trails a basket and fighter extends its own probe to refuel. But Canada plans to buy F-35As, which were designed for the U.S. Air Force’s refueling system, in which a human operator aboard the tanker flies a boom into a port on the fighter – in this case, on the A’s spine, aft of the cockpit. So has Lockheed talked with Canada about buying Navy-model Cs, to keep the probe-and-drogue setup, or modifying its As?
A: O’Bryan: “We anticipated a number of the operators would want probe-and-drogue refueling in the F-35A and we kept that space empty on the F-35A to accommodate probe and drogue refueling. We‘ve done a number of studies – funded studies, not projects – funded studies to evaluate that,
paid for by the countries who want that to happen. It’s a relatively easy … doable change.”