Sadly the carrier at yeovilton will probably be the nearest any of us will get to a RN ctol carrier for the forseeable future. Oh and here is that ‘S mk3’ Bucc in 801 colours! BTW if you get your hands on this months Navy News there is a deck by deck cutaway of Ark Royal IV, showing just how 2700 sailors could be fitted into a ship that size!
I always thought the MOD/government in general would not allow Ark Royal to be preserved because they saw her as an embarrassment (ie because they were getting rid of CTOL naval aviation) and thought the sooner she was gone the sooner everyone would forget about the whole carrier crisis and the ‘end of empire’. On the other hand, when the Falklands were invaded, Admiral Leach briefed Margaret Thatcher about the Task Force he was assembling, and after telling her that Hermes and Invincible would be sent along with all the Sea Harriers available, she apparently replied “And you’ll be sending the Ark Royal with her Phantoms and Buccaneers of course?”, only to be told that her government had scrapped the Ark Royal 18 months earlier, and the Phantoms and Buccaneers were now effectively impotent in the hands of the land based RAF. Lessons of history…
Lessons of history?! Now you.ve done it! Certain posters here dont believe in that! Prepare for PARAGRAPHS of why you are just wrong and “history” means nothing!n
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