Why Doesn't The Air force Just Use Navy Variants?

[Tokthr]

So basically since the American Navy also operates aircraft on its Carriers it has specially built navy Variants of its aircraft.

For example the F-35 that the Navy uses is different from the ones the Air force uses.

Usually Naval Variants are more reinforced, have longer wings and stronger landing gear and canopies.

My question is that since the Navy Variants are just stronger and modified versions of Air force Jets with added features. Why doesn't the Air force use those jets instead?

What is the point of having weaker variants for runways when both services can use the reinforced and fortified Naval variants.

An Air force variant of a jet can't land on a carrier but a Naval varients of a jet can land on a runway

So is it better to just use the naval variant that can operate in both places?

[BCA6010]

"Navy variants" of the same plane are typically inferior due to modifications that have to be made for carrier operations, especially in a stealth plane where weapons are carried internally. They also tend to be more expensive, so when the Air Force needs several times more of a certain aircraft, why the hell would they spend more on a plane that has worthless features that they may also have to sacrifice more relevant capabilities over? An additional ~500kg of weight, bigger wingspan, and forced 'nose-up' attitudes for landing are not desirable features when you don't need them.

To put this into perspective, in reference to the F35A, B, and C, the USAF's A-variants account for about 2/3s of all F35s being built. The remainder are a roughly even split between B and C, though notably the USMC has more F35s ordered than the USN. The Marines are even poaching Navy variants because the SVTOL has proven more trouble than it's worth, surprising absolutely nobody who worked on or with Harriers.

It's even more disproportionate with other aircraft from foreign countries. Mig-29K (carrier variant) only accounts for 81 of the over 1,600 Mig-29s that have been built. Their other carrier plane, the Su-33, has less than two dozen in operation (compared to the almost 700 other Su27 variants built), and the Chinese copycat (J-15 I think) is also a fringe minority of their planes.

There's also another factor: carrier planes are not built equally. The only foreign-made plane capable of operating on a US carrier is France's Rafale-M, which is itself just one variant (significantly heavier by comparison) of the Rafale.

[NamerOfStars]

Logically, a plane built to land on aircraft carrier is going to have different attributes, as it needs to stop faster and be better able to handle the rocking of a ship's deck, which isn't a factor on land (as Pollen would be happy to tell you). I'm not sure what, precisely, those changes would be, but they likely do at least one of two things: limit the plane's abilities (fuel, weapons, and performance) and raise the cost.

American military spending isn't exactly small, and while there are SOME members of Congress who want to increase it (mostly because it would be spent in their districts), most of the electorate doesn't want to see billions of dollars thrown away on excessive hardware, especially when most of the people we fight these days are ragtag militants whose latest innovation is the camel-mounted AK-47.

[Tokthr]

And the USA still lost

[NamerOfStars]

No it didn't. It flattened Iraq, leaving the area ripe for ISIS to invade. The point wasn't to "liberate" Iraq; it never has been. It was to punish Saddam's regime, which it did quite handily.

[RebelinSteel]

The naval version cannot carry the same level of ordnance that a land based version can. That has been the age old dilemma of carrier operations. If you build an aircraft to operate off a shortened deck versus a runway, you need to optimise its design. The wings need to fully fold, sweep back, wingtips fold for storing, you need to put extra weight into the design to make everything stronger, you need to over engineer various aspects to ensure the aircraft can take off and land successfully. You then have an export market that the navalised version needs to be sold in.
Weight is not a good thing for an aircraft, it means reduced fuel loads, reduced ordinance, also it means it cannot pull as much G. The Airforce version is capable of pulling more G, which for a fighter is a bonus. There is more but short version is look at Pearl Harbour film and Doolittle Raid, that’s where weight and take off length come into play.

[Allywoke]

Becuz they are weak