quote:

ORIGINAL: ckfinite

If anything, the CATOBAR requirement was actually the nasty one, too. This was the LM CALF (JSF predecessor, STOVL and conventional takeoff) proposal:
. . .
The F-35C's CATOBAR requirement was harder to fill than the STOVL's, driving a more conventional design. I think that this was because the F-35C is so much more radically different than either of the other two.

This is caused by a lot of things, including a much stronger fuselage, a larger wing, the totally different undercarriage, and the tailhook.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Brent119
An interesting point that I had not heard made before. So you're suggesting that LM gave up their earlier canard-delta design largely due to the CV requirements? Do you know of a published source that alludes to this? Something I hadn't considered before.

Thanks for the insight.

quote:


The addition of four new ground-attack missions from the MRF
program changed the design emphasis from a fighter with some strike
capability to a strike aircraft with some air-to-air defensive capability.
The development of stealth and long-range air-to-air missiles had
changed the nature of air combat, and so the emphasis was on
achieving a first-look, first-kill capability and reducing the need to
dogfight at close range. For these reasons, the two AIM 9 missiles
were removed and the aircraft was designed to carry two 2000 lb
bombs in the internal weapons bays, in addition to the two AIM 120
missiles. This increased the aircraft’s frontal area and wave drag. The
Air Force variant was derived, as before, by removing the lift fan and
thrust-vectoring nozzles and substituting a fuel tank and conventional
cruise nozzle. These aircraft are shown in Fig. 15.