A new look for HMS Ark Royal !

I would be surprised if any of the Invincable class ends up being sunk in an exercise. Sinking ships that size would be sensative with the increasingly strong UK green lobby.

I think the MOD will at least try and sell one of the class as a helicopter carrier with Ark Royal being retained as a backup for Ocean albeit minus her ski jump. The remaining hull being stripped for parts to keep her sisters going before being scrapped out.

I agree that the Invincable class would be a difficult sell considering their heavy life but I think the Ark will be retained longer considering she has gone through two deep refits in recent years and now favours the commando assault carrier role.

Well with half the country living below the poverty line and the Northern Boarder continuosly under attack from the Burmese and security breaches by drug runners you’d think they would spend their money better.

Perhaps now that Chinnawaht has been ousted the government might make a better go of things!

Thanks for the info, I’d heard it was basically a junket for the Thai King, never realised she’s hardly ever left port though. I imagine there are an infinite number of things Thailand could spend their money on.

It’s more like a royal hotel sitting there in port, since she was bought, she’s only left port twice, there is no permenant crew for her and the Royal room on her takes up a rather disproportionate size of the main living deck. It really is a joke and a bad one at that!

Isn’t the Thai CVL basically just a royal yacht and flag waving vessel? Albeit, a very expensive one.

Sorry to bring this old topic back to life guys but here is my two cents worth (as if you needed them).

The RN will not sell any of these carriers as they are full of Asbestos and we all know the harm that can do. I anticipate that should these ships finally retire, they will be used in some sort of Livex where all three services will get the chance to test their wepons and their effectiveness in the modern war environment (first should logically be for the RN; Torpedo strike from subs, next would be the RAF for ASM missile testing, and the final one for the army with SpecOps or something creative like that).

No country is interested in buying any of these old carriers as buying them would mean that they will have only a helo carrier or have to fork out huge amounts of cash for Harriers and buying the Licence to have them (and we know how the US government is on that topic lately). Besides, very few countries could actually afford these carriers even after their use in the RN, their support costs would be enormous!

As for the Apaches, I found this on the BBC News site:

The Apache AH MK1 improves on the American AH-64D in a number of ways including the more powerful Rolls Royce Turbomeca RTM322 engines.

Other improvements include a de-icing system for rotor blades in cold weather and folding blades to enable ship operations.

If you ask me, the poms have the right idea in making these machines sea capable, I can’t understand why the US never did it :confused: Oh and Yes the British are the only ones with these machines at sea, all the other countries that have the Apache took the stock standard version from the US (this is another reason why Australia didn’t buy these things for our Army).

Ed: mate what the guy was talking about is infact quite true, MOST RN ships should be capable of taking an Apache in their hanger, but bare in mind that this is instead of the Merlin. Ships with small hangers for just a lynx are not capable of taking the Mk-1’s but this doesn’t matter as they will be retiring those soon enough (These include the Type 42’s and the Type 22’s).

wilhelm: Indeed it was and this was mainly to cater for the expected Malaysian and Australian orders for which both had specified a “Sea Deployment” capability. Our order went to the Tiger and the Malaysians ran out of money, thus killing that off, but I still think Denel have it there should anyone be serious about this machine and that includes the SADF/N who are starting to replace everything in their services (with good reason) and also expand on their capabilities- wouldn’t be too suprised if the SADF/N finds itself with a Helo carrier some time around 2020!

Harry: mate the Thai’s would be better off selling the Carrier they have as it has done no good and is a huge money pit for them. I mean they bought it with the intention of flying the old Harriers off it, it has only made one trip with the EAV-8’s on board before a lack of spares forced them to be grounded. There is also a lack of Pilots for them with the latest figure standing at only three and only one of those pilots is a full timer on the Harrier (the other two keep their Harrier quals by flying one of the two servicable harriers every month but have turned to flying RTAF F-16’s on a full time basis with 301 Sqdn, source- Thai navy website, thai language version).

True, but the UK has still initially committed to a design based around the F35B. Now France may use the design for PA2 which will use catapults and arrestor gear it changes the economic and risk arguments at play for future upgrades, which to me changes the whole STOVL argument. In time I believe we will see a few more CVL/LPH/LPHD types flying the F35B.

Or the CVF in it’s planned initial configuration.

But not to the same extent, since its size permits the operation of other types in a STOBAR configuration (a trivial modification), & it has provision for fitting catapults. It’s a flexible design, planned to be configured for F-35B originally. Cavour is entirely designed around F-35B, & there’s no other current or planned type, apart from Harriers, until they wear out, which it will be able to operate without a major rebuild to fit catapults, for which no provision has been made in the design.

Crab, Yes UAV’s would certainly be on the agenda

You mean like Cavour?

Or the CVF in it’s planned initial configuration.

I wonder could these small carriers be used to fly Uav’s in the not to distant future?

I think with countries having small carriers like India these type pf heli ships can be of immense important.
small carrier carrying all planes without any heli and these carrying all ASW Helis and if space is there a AEW craft?

Once the F35B is available I’m guessing countries will design ships around it …

You mean like Cavour?

Once the F35B is available I’m guessing countries will design ships around it in the same way the Harrier stimulated a few countries to build small carriers only suitable for Harrier or helicopter operation.

Chakri Naruebet hardly likely to even have f35 nevermind operated them 😉

wouldn’t commando carrier converstion be feasable for the small carrier i.e PdA GG or would they just get new ships as its not economic to change them to a commando carrier

About the Harrier and it’s demise, the F35B is on the horizon and I expect that the F35B will give a whole new impetus to naval aviation, with more countries building ski jump equipped STOVL carriers or multi-purpose LPH/LPHD type vessels.

Yes, but it’s twice the size of a Harrier, & current mini-carriers (e.g. Garibaldi & Chakri Naruebet) are sub-optimal for operating F-35B. Some of them may need refits, e.g. to increase lift capacity, before they can operate it. So while we will probably see new STOVL carriers, I expect them to be bigger, along the lines of Cavour & BPE, & I can also imagine that some of the current crop will never fly the F-35B, even if they remain in service long enough.

Attack helicopters have been to sea many times, not least the AH1 family. Putting a helicopter on a LPH may seem no big deal, but taking the AH64D to sea is a significant development when the original model is not marinised. This hasn’t got a lot of coverage but the UK decision to marinise their AH64D’s with a requirement that they be operable from RN vessels was quite a significant capability improvement in the AH64D. Just as the fact that the LPH and Invincible class CVL’s now have an attack helicopter capability (and a superb attack helicopter at that, despite it’s critics the AH64D is a helicopter almost any force in the world would love in it’s arsenal) is a significant move for them. So all in all yes, seeing an attack helicopter at sea and seeing a flat top with attack helicopters may be nothing new, seeing the AH64D at sea and seeing RN vessels with attack helicopters is worthy of comment (although Ocean has had this capability for a while).
About the Harrier and it’s demise, the F35B is on the horizon and I expect that the F35B will give a whole new impetus to naval aviation, with more countries building ski jump equipped STOVL carriers or multi-purpose LPH/LPHD type vessels.

A seaborne Rooivalk was mooted quite a few years back.

Theres nothing that mind blowing about putting on a attack chopper on a ship.

Now the Harriers are dying off, expect a lot more mini carriers to switch to attack choppers.

Dream mode on. Now if every RN ship intended for littoral operations had a hanger capable of taking an Apache AND a conventional helicopter………………………………. One thing we don’t seem short of is Apache’s