Quote Originally Posted by Strickland View Post
....assuming that the F-35B isnt killed as a program.
The F-35B may prove to be a mistake but it won't be killed as a program. The F-35 Lightning II JSF was designed with a bulky high-drag fuselage in order to make space behind the cockpit for a vertically-mounted turbo-fan, air intake and exhaust plus door panels needed to meet the USMC requirement for STOVL capabilities. And the complications and compromises stemming from that decision have affected the eventual fighters’ performance and the overall JSF schedule and costs.

However, the USMC has not joined the USN in ordering the F/A-18E Super Hornet - and possibly also the F/A-18F twin seater – to succeed its obsolescing F/A-18C Hornet multi-role fighter. The USMC has instead staked the future of its fixed wing fighter force entirely on the F-35B to replace both the Hornet and the AV-8B Harrier VSTOL fighter.

A further reason for continued development of the F-35B is that its termination would prejudice arguments for multi-service rationalization and procurement, and leave both the Pentagon and the USMC with proverbial ‘egg all over the place’. So the F-35B will continue as part of a remorseless JSF project. Any reduction in expenditure on USMC aviation will have to come from somewhere else.

Cutting back the heavyweight CH-53K project is unlikely because its use as a flying crane is valuable and in the medium term almost irreplaceable, except by US Army CH-47 Chinooks. At the lightweight end the USMC has the UH-1Y Venom utility and AH-1W Viper gunship helicopter projects as upgrades of the Twin Huey and Huey Cobra. Both of those types are indispensable although the Venom might be supplemented by a batch of MH-60S Seahawks already in service with the USN.

That leaves in the middle the MV-22B Osprey. And it is often on the ground waiting for spares, repair of hydraulics or an uncomplicated mission and a tightly controlled flight plan.

Within USMC aviation the prime and probably the only realistic target for a sizeable cutback is the MV-22B.