I believe it was Bulwark that they were looking for Gannets for… some were trying to re-commission her for the Falklands… which would have been quite a job, considering:
1. had been decommissioned April 1981
2. had been towed to the scrapper, but work had not yet started (finally started April 1984)
3. her catapults had been removed in 1958-1960 when she had been converted to a commando carrier
and
4. she had had one boiler room gutted by a fire 15 March 1980, and this had not been repaired, followed by a major fire which damaged the forward hangar and many mess decks 9 November 1980.

“if there was there ever was in the history of Aircraft Carriers any case of expansion through cutting and plugging?”

The USS Ranger (CV-61) was scheduled for her SLEP 7/1993-8/96, to keep her in service until ~2010.

The USN was considering modifing her by inserting a ~200 foot plug just forward of the island, to increase endurance and aircraft capacity. An starboard-side elevator was to be included in the “plug”, and the port elevator removed, as it interfered with flight ops if used. The waist catapults were to be moved forward onto the “plug” and former port elevator area.

By late 1989, the SLEP had been cancelled, due to the projected cost, the remaining technical questions (like hull strength), but mainly due to the end of the “Cold War”… which began a period of significant reduction of numbers of ships, aircraft, and personnel in the Navy.

Ranger was decommissioned on 10 July 1993.

I would hardly call either HMS Tiger or HMS Blake very elegant in appearance…

They are referring to the late 1960s-1980s programs in which the USAF acquired (through different means) a number of different models of USSR warplanes… including Mig-17, Mig-21, Mig-23, Su-17, etc. and flew them in training missions against regular USAF pilots and aircraft.

This is to be expected… after all, only a moron would pass up the chance to fully evaluate, and train against, the aircraft he expects to someday be fighting for real.

Also to be expected is the tone of this article, which tries to make it sound like the US was trying to “catch up” or “copy technology” from the USSR designs… implying we were less advanced.

In reality, the USSR made some brilliant designs, but most of that brilliance was used to make aircraft made with a lower level of materials and electronics technology still be competitive… which they did, and that was a real achievement.

There is only good that can be said about their design bureaus, it was the other sectors which lagged behind… and which are rapidly closing the gap on the US and Europe.

http://home.att.net/~jbaugher/uscombataircraft.html
http://home.att.net/~jbaugher4/usnavyattack.html
http://home.att.net/~jbaugher4/newa4_1.html

Alarmed at the trend towards ever-increasing weight in contemporary fighters such as the USAF F-86 Sabre and the Navy F9F Panther, Douglas Chief Engineer Douglas Heinemann charted a team of engineers to work on a private venture to see if this trend could be reversed. They came up with a rather daring proposal for a jet fighter weighing only 7000 pounds. The team submitted the results of this preliminary design study to the Bureau of Aeronautics in early January of 1952.

The Navy showed some interest, but since they were already involved in the consideration of several other fighter designs, they suggested that the Douglas team should apply the same sort of philosophy to the design of a carrier-based attack aircraft. This plane would be intended for the nuclear strike role, with a top speed of 500 mph, a combat radius of 345 miles, a 2000-lb weapons load, and a maximum gross weight of less than 30,000 pounds.

Heinemann’s team responded a couple of weeks later with a proposal that exceeded these requirements by a substantial margin. The normal loaded weight of the aircraft would be only 12,000 pounds, less than half the limit specified by the Navy, and the top speed was 100 mph greater and the combat radius 115 miles greater. Douglas was authorized to proceed with further design studies. During the evaluation, the range requirements were increased, raising the gross weight to 14,000 pounds.

A preliminary mockup inspection took place in February of 1952 Douglas was given a contract for one aircraft On June 12, 1952. The designation was XA4D-1, and the BuNo was 137812. The project was financed by diverting funds from the cancelled A2D Skyshark program. Final mockup inspection took place in October of 1952. By this time, the Navy had ordered 9 production aircraft, which was soon increased to 19.

Looking at the angles of the lettering, and the rivet lines on the bottom of the piece, and the leading edge angle, and the paint scheme, I agree… F-105.

Everything looks pretty straight, with no signs of burning or melting, so I would say it has been stripped and sitting outside for a number of years.