"STOVL could damage sensitive equipment on decks"

No problem, a yatch will be fine to land on.
Mike

Inside the Navy
STOVL could damage sensitive equipment on decks

NEW TEAM WILL LOOK AT POTENTIAL INCOMPATIBILITY OF JSF WITH AMPHIBS
Date: March 24, 2008

The Navy has commissioned an integration team to deal with concerns
that the short-take-off-and-vertical-landing (STOVL) version of the
Joint Strike Fighter could damage sensitive equipment on new LHA-6
large-deck amphibious assault ships, according to Vice Adm. Paul
Sullivan, commander of Naval Sea Systems Command. The JSF is much more
powerful and has a hotter exhaust than the AV-8B Harrier aircraft,
which is currently used, "so you worry about things like the
insulation on the overhead of the deck below the flight center,"
Sullivan told Inside the Navy March 20 after his presentation at the
Navy League's annual Sea-Air-Space exposition in Washington. Sensitive
equipment such as antennas, gun systems and ammunition on the deck
could also be at risk, which is why a team will examine these
potential issues in detail, the admiral said. The integration team
will be run by one- and two-star officials "because we thought it
serious enough to make sure that [it has] the proper attention on it,"
he said. "We're working on a host of about, oh I'd say 30 or 40
issues, none of which is a show-stopper, but each one of them has to
have the risk profile assigned to it." The team will create a "burn-
down" list of risks and assign people to deal with those risks,
Sullivan said. "Getting all that set up is probably going to take us
about another month," he said. The admiral said that most of the
problems should get worked out in the next couple of years -- well
before the STOVL variant's scheduled initial operational capability
(IOC) in 2012. The next-generation LHA-6 is designed to replace the
Tarawa-class vessels. The LHA-6 is expected to be a gas-turbine-
powered ship supporting a Marine Expeditionary Brigade with JSFs, V-22
Ospreys and other aircraft. The Northrop Grumman-built ships are
scheduled for delivery in 2012, about the same time as the JSF. In
January, Capt. Bruce Nichols, director of the Navy's mine warfare
branch, warned that the Navy's LSD and LHD ships -- which ferry
soldiers, amphibious craft and aircraft to battle zones -- would need
to be modified because of the JSF's powerful down-wash, which is two
to three times the strength of the AV-8B aircraft. Nichols said then
that officials would look at ways to modify the ships as they go
through their mid-life modernization programs, which will last three
years and cost about $9 billion