Two reasons When the f22 program was started navy was still of the beleaf that it could get money for it own seperate fighter. That era of aircraft procurment is over now and isnt coming back. Second is cost navy would be looking at 25 to 30 billion to design and produce 300 are so naval f22 at minimum. I beleave expanding f22 program will be a huge issue after next years elections. Right now people are keepin quiet about it because f22 cost more then f35 and more f22 will cost extra money that is getting harder to come by in lite of 400+ billion dollar budget deficts. Im for a naval f22 and a larger buy for airforce costs be damned.

The Navy actually funded $165 million in R&D in the early 1990s to investigate development of a navalized F-22, but the project never went beyond the research phase. The biggest problem is that the F-22's landing speed is too high for landing on aircraft carriers, and solving this would pretty much require turning it into a swing-wing fighter. Doing that and keeping the F-22's stealthy characteristics wasn't considered reasonable or affordable, as you'd wind up designing basically an entirely new aircraft.

It seems that Rafale a delta wing (with very small canard) and land on aircraft carrier smaller than US.You don't need variable sewpt.Maybe a redesign wing.But it is very difficult to adapt a first designed ground plane to navy unless you redesign completely airframe.The rpogram should have been common at the beginning.I think everything was politics.Like navy use SM2 and army Patriot.

Obviously, a swing wing is not a requirement for all carrier borne fighters. However, the Navy wanted a fighter which had both the stealth characteristics and performance of the F-22, and the loiter capability of the F-14. Lockheed evidently decided that the best way to do this and have an aircraft with the desired low approach speed (the F-22's is about 155 knots, the Rafale's approach speed is 115 knots for comparison) for carrier compatibility, was to give it a variable geometry wing. Whether or not other approaches might have worked is irrelevant; what matters is that if the project had gone forward in 1992, Lockheed would have built a swing-wing version of the F-22.

Intersting info its clear that at time of f22s start that a swing wing version was a non starter from a cost and technolgy risk stand point. I wonder if Navy would be willing to except higher landing speed of f22 if they had a chance at it today?

No. That approach speed is way too fast for carrier ops. Considerably faster than the F/A-18C/D, which is considered excessively fast in that regard.

Ok, so the approach speed seems to be the killer here. A pity the navy did not collaborate with the airforce on the project to begin with. BTW: Why is variable wing aircraft the only way to solve the approach speed problem? Would not an enlargement of the wing into a delta shape (think F/B-22) also do the trick, as well as allowing the fighter to carry more fuel?

Is 155 knots the f22s curent landing speed are was 155 knots the limit allowed in the fighters design specs?

Also the F-22 is massive and would be hard to store on the limited space on a carrier

It seems odd that vector thrust technology could not be used to slow a F22 down to carrier landing speeds. Apparently the angle of approach to the carrier deck would be too high for a safe landing?