Given the ongoing problems getting the F-35C carrier qualified, this may be a moot discussion. There was a 100% failure rate in the last rolling hook engagement test in front of Pentagon inspectors. Depending on who's blog you read, it's either a minor problem or a major one so the next few months will be interesting.
Here's a link to a good description of the problem.
http://rt.com/news/f-35-design-flaw-917/Here's the text of the problem.
"A design flaw in the US Marine Corps version of the F-35 Lightning II, which prevents it from landing on an aircraft carrier, could see the highly advanced vehicle grounded indefinitely.
The F-35C, also known as the carrier variant of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (CV JSF), is one of several fifth-generation fighters developed under the JSF program. New documents reveal that the aircraft has a crucial flaw, which could prevent it from ever being able to land on a vessel.
A Pentagon Concurrency Quick Look Review (QLR) of November 2011 says that all eight run-in/rolling tests undertaken at NAS Lakehurst in August 2011 to see if the F-35C could catch a wire with the tail hook have failed. The tail hook is meant to catch one of several wires stretched across the deck, after which a special arresting engine kicks in to quickly slow the aircraft down.
In the case of the F-35C, the decades-old trick doesn’t work. The tail hook is located too close to the main landing gear, so the springs supporting the arresting cable don’t have enough time to raise it after the wheels run over it for the hook to engage.
In fact, the F-35C has the shortest distance between the tail hook and the wheels among a dozen past and current aircraft deployed by the US Navy, the report says, making the CV JSF “an outlier.”
The flaw seems to be inherent to the design, and engineers simply cannot relocate the hook without a major overhaul of the construction, which is likely to be too costly for today’s cost-conscious Pentagon. At the same time, Lockheed Martin, which produces the F-35, said as early as 2007 that all variants of the vehicle were “mature and ready for production.” "
