now why hasn’t anyone photoshopped a real F-35 (not a drawing) with RAF or RN colors?

How’s about this then?

Why not just a repeat of the Ocean design but slightly modified to make her last longer if that is possible? If we keep the cost down we might just two if we try and use it as an Argus replacement as well.

Agreed 150%!:D;)

Splitting hairs I know but they carried Aim-9G as well left over from the Phantom days.

Actually after all the broohaa about how the Aim-9L won the war it should be noted that all kills made with it were within the engagement envelope of the 9G.

Agreed. Had the -9L not been available, the SHARs would in all probability have scored just as many kills. The FAA pilots were trained on the -9G and knew it’s envelope well, many having come from the Phantom FG1 during the 70s (the SHAR pool of pilots in 82 was made up of a mix of ex- Phantom pilots, ex- Buccanner pilots, some new recruits and a handful of RAF Harrier pilots on loan), and in combat pilots rely on their training. There was insufficient time to retrain the pilots to the new expnded engagement envelope beyond making them aware of it. The best way to engage an enemy aircraft in combat is from behind anyway (so he doesn’t see you!) and all the talk of ‘Viffing’ to gain the advantage was just press hype.

Form what has been said it appears we intend to operate the new CVs as large Invincibles rather than as a CVBG like the USN and to some extent the French. So we will have a CV at sea sometimes and sometimes it will have fixed wing assets on board and sometimes not.

It is sort of “When is a Carrier not a Carrier?” answer “When it is owned by the RN!” or to say the CVFs are “Fitted for but not with fixed wing platforms”

With this train of thought wouldn’t the RN have been better ordering 3 Large multi-role flat tops like the USN LHDs rather than dedicated carriers if we are not going to use them as such?

You sem to have fallen for the RN’s brilliant PR masterstroke, that is not telling th world at large what they REALLY intend to use them for! The whole STOVL/LPH mission profile for the CVFs is the best way to sell them to the government as low cost, and therefore get them built in the first place. If they had said from day one these ships will be CTOL carriers with two catapults and three arrestor engines each, enabling the operation of up to forty F-35Cs and a flight of Hawkeyes, the upfront buying cost would have tipped the balance against the whole project and aroused serious opposition from the RAF Brass into the bargain. Remember the RN has a long track record of slipping the ships they want ‘under the radar’ of likely opposition (treasury and RAF). Since 1966 they have commissioned five flat tops without actually openly calling them that when asking for funding (three invincible class ‘Through Deck Cruisers’ !, RFA Argus, a ‘28,000ton Aviation Training Ship’, !! and HMS Ocean, a 20,000ton ‘Amphibious Support Ship’ !!!). For a long time I was convinced the CVFs were a decoy which would attract all the criticism from the anti carrier lobby whilst the RN would slip something innocuous past under the radar which would form the real carrier force of the future. Then CVF became a real prospect and whatever contingency plan the RN had (LPHR?) has been put on the back burner.

Upgrading the CVFs to CTOL configuration will not be a difficult task. They are after all designed to accomodate cats and wires from the start so even if the descision to switch was made in the next couple of years it shouldn’t cause more than a few months delay, and that would be more a matter of supplying the equipment rather than work on the ships themselves. Remember also that smaller carriers (LHDs) are not necessarily cheaper carriers. The RN in asking for the 65,000tonne CVFs are going for the ‘most carrier’ they can get into Pompey and Guz for the best price. Carriers increase their efficiency and striking power exponentially as their size increases but their cost does not increase at the same rate. Smaller carriers are not cheaper but are less effective. Compared to the other costs of a modern warship, steel is still cheap and the air it surrounds is still free…

My personal preference has always been for CTOL CVF/ F-35C/ Hawkeye but will happily accept STOVL/ F-35B/ Merlin ASaC in the meantime, as it is infinitely preferrable to handing all responsibilty for fleet air cover to the crabs.

Indeed yes! My bet is on the retractable chocks/JBD solution, despite their apparent absence from some artist’s impressions. They are a low cost solution relatively, and very low tech too. We shall see…

The extra volume could be in part explained by the need to accomodate troops in the LPH role, something included in both the CVF’s specs and the preceding Invincible class. A thousand booties and their kit do take up a lot of space…

If CVV could operate the F-14, I take it that CVA would have been able to also?

CVA-01 and her sisters would have been fitted with two BS6 250ft stroke catapults and DAX II arrestor gear, most sources regard these as more than adequate for F-14s. Cmdr ‘Sharkey’ Ward, CO of 801 NAS in the Falklands has said that if the CVAs had been built he would have been flying RN F-14s in 82 supported by Hawkeyes. Indeed it is likely the RAF would have bought F-14s in preferrence to the Tornado ADV. Another great ‘what if’…

The two islands on the QEs have a very small ‘deck footprint’ and if a single island design had been chosen, the same amount of deck space would have bee used. The need to channel the exhaust ducts for the GTs to that single island would have impacted on internal volume, otherwise the ‘Japanese’ idea of separating the funnels from the island might have become the only option. The Invincibles do have large funnels, but the actual exhausts for the GTs are similar in size to those on comparable carriers, Cavour especially conceals the size of her exhausts by having a very built up island with lots of compartments above flight deck level. In the Invincible design most of these compartments are below flight deck level and distributed withtin the hull, so funnels aside Invincible’s island is relatively small! Cavour’s and Makin Island’s superstructures are also wider than Invincible’s, meaning a much larger deck ‘footprint’ ie they take up much more deck space…

In the early 60s, the RN did know what it wanted, ie a Forrestal/Kitty Hawk type carrier fleet. At the same time it knew it couldn’t have them for reasons of size primarily, as they could not be accomodated at either of the RN’s Carrier bases (Pompey and Guz), so something smaller had to be accepted. To achieve the desired capability the carrier was split into two ship designs, the CVA would carry the fixed wing strike aircraft and Fleet AEW whilst the smaller ‘Escort Cruiser’ would operate the ASW helicopters of the Task Group (taking up valuable space aboard the existing carriers thus reducing the numbers of fixed wing aircraft they could carry). The two designs, a 50-60,000 tonne strike carrier and a 12,000 tonne Escort Cruiser, would therefore give the RN the capability of a single much larger carrier design. CVA-01 should not be viewed in isolation from it’s companion design (which ultimately evolved into the Invincibles).

The core CVA-01 design was the result of very intense studies of carrier ops with the then new Angled deck carriers, and was the next logical evolution (incorporating the parallell deck concept). The flaws that crept into the design were political in origin, such as the arbitrary tonnage limitation (no larger than Eagle, hence 50,000 tonnes, which crept back up to about 55,000 tonnes in the end anyway), and had the RN and the design team been given a free hand the final layout would be less subject to criticism. The inclusion of Sea Dart at the stern was simply following US practice with the Kitty Hawks (and Enterprise if she had been finished to the original design specs) which were built with two twin Terrier launchers aft. AFAIK, Ikara did not feature in the final design of the CVAs, but four Sea Cat Launchers to supplement the Sea Dart installation are usually quoted, though not specifically shown on official drawings. The reduced flight deck area aft to starboard over the boat deck was probably another weight saving measure, one that would have been rectified soon after entering service.

The Parallell deck layout divided the deck into three separate areas, the landing runway to port, a central deck park alongside the island, and the widened Alaska Higway to starboard of the island, allowing aircraft either from the aft deck park or from the hangar deck brought up on the aft (deck edge) lift to be brought forward to the starboard catapult without interfering with recovery operations or disturbing the deck park. The sponson supporting the Alaska Highway itself was very large and intended to deflect heavy seas from the aircraft movements on the highway. the design has often attracted criticism for not mounting a deck edge lift forward, retaining an inboard lift (of the new ‘scissors’ design) instead. In fact these features were directly influenced by the operational experience of the RN’s carriers in their primary operation areas, eg the Bay of Biscay and the Northern Atlantic. Remember the American Super Carriers were still relatively new and the RN did not have direct experience of operating them or their seaworthiness (in terms of the forward deck edge lifts ant their relative wetness in heavy seas), so the reasoning of the RN is understandable.

The CVV design on the other hand is by definition basically an economy version of the JFK, halved in most of the important details in order to achieve economies. Half the lifts, half the catapults, much reduced steam plant and manning. Ultimately as compromised by the politicians if not more so as CVA-01 was.