The question began when I remembered reading somewhere that Yak-41 (a.k.a. Yak-141) is primarily intended for shore-based operation as its exhaust heat is considered too hot even for the heat-resistant materials available for the former Soviets to build flight decks with.
I wonder if having the aircraft hovering alongside the ship rather than directly over the ship itself would help alleviate the problem......
Also, is there other STOVL designs (East and West, of all timeframes) that might have the same "too hot for carrier flight deck" problem? I mean Mirage IIIV, VJ-101, D188A, and a few others from the West also uses liftjets. How far along is the West when it comes to making heat-resistant flight deck?
Actually, how different a challenge is fabricating a flight deck capable of supporting the above-mentioned aircraft from, say, the jet blast deflectors on CATOBAR or STOBAR carriers?