[evoxed]

The US doesn't need them– but they'd love to sell them to other countries to recoup some of their costs. Too bad their pricing difficulties have pretty much ruined any chance of that working though, as Japan's already announced that they don't want them for more than the original projection.

[arethuza]

The F-35 is causing the UK all manner of problems as well:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17437272

Unfortunately, we're already commited over $10 billion to building new carriers for them.

[46Bit]

One new carrier and one floating Scottish island, you mean.

[arethuza]

Just looked at the Wikipedia page for the new carriers, it seems we are going to operate one and keep the other in "extended readiness":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queen_Elizabeth_class_aircraft_...

I presume "extended readiness" is civil service jargon for "scrapped as soon as it is built".

[46Bit]

More or less, yes. The thing is only being built because Labour managed to make it barely any cheaper to cancel the contracts than to actually build a second, unused & unusable one.