Grim said:
“In all honesty I think that the initial F35 buy will be reduced, but they’ll buy more later as long as PoW is ordered (which I think it will, by 2012 when it’s laid down this finance thing will have blown over and/or been sorted, remember it’s on a 20 year or so cycle, so for it to be crashing for over 5 years means capitalism has really stopped working).”

Prince of Wales has been ordered, One contract,Two ships. For example, now that Appledore have finished the bulbous bow for HMS Queen Elizabeth, they will be starting work on the same units for HMS Prince of Wales. Completed components will be stored at Rosyth until needed as both ships will be assembled consecutively in the same drydock. The contract was to deliver Carrier strike capability, which has been determined to require two ships.

Some long lead items for CVA-01 probably did find their way onto Ark Royal, her water cooled JBDs for a start but not the waist catapult, it was a 199ft stroke BS5 whilst the CVA-01 class would have had 250ft stroke BS6 catapults. The DAX II arrestor engines could have been part of the CVA order too, but Ark Royal’s refit was planned anyway as aprt of the CVA program, along with a full upgrade for Eagle. As the three new CVAs could not be built simltaneously, two of the existing carriers would have to be ‘Phantomised’ as stop gaps until CVA-02 and CVA-03 could be built. So equipment like water cooled JBDs, DAX II wires etc would have been ordered for more than one ship. Eagle received a single DAX II wire for Phantom trials around 1967-68 in addition to the four fitted to Ark Royal. AFAIK, no BS6 catapults were built once the CVA program was cancelled. The scisors lift design found it’s way into the Invincible class, but these units were not ordered until several years later. Like the Malta class, no steel was cut for the hulls of the CVA-01 class carriers.

Dramaticaly costly, expensive to maintain 2 ships class, nearly identical….
:rolleyes:

Two nearly identical ship classes that use the same components/logistic supply train and only physically differ in that one has a well deck and the other doesn’t? I hope you were being sarcastic!

So in theory, with an initial service life of 1987 to 1994, she could be regarded as a ‘low mileage’ ship, but the way she was treated when laid up is an important factor too. From the photographic evidence it would appear she recieved no maintenance at all whilst awaiting a buyer, beyond occassional checks that she wasn’t leaking! For the money that has been (eventually) agreed for her reconstruction, I would have opted for a whole new ship, or at the very least a complete re engineing rather than overhauling the existing somewhat unreliable powerplant. Of course hindsight is a wonderful thing…

Wanshan: Fair enough, but government sources aren’t always the most reliable. Prior to 1982, the Invincible class were said to be able to support Five Sea Harriers and nine Sea Kings. In the South Atlantic Invincible herself operated up to ten Sea Harriers without difficulty in addition to her helos. For most of the last two decades they have more reasonably been quoted as carrying up to twenty two aircraft of varying compositional mixes. Cavour is comparable in size to HMS Hermes, which could easily accomodate up to thirty Harriers as well as a sqn of helos. I appreciate Cavour’s flight deck layout is far less efficient than Hermes but even so if the figures they are quoting are true then the Italian Navy were truly stiffed when they accepted this ship!:eek:

The Essex class conversions recieved their catapults before the angled deck was approved for installation. The SCB-27A programme was for axial decked ships, with two H-8 Hydraulic catapults installed forward. The follow on SCB-27C programme was intended to be along the same lines but with the first US Steam Catapults in place of the Hydraulic ones. Halfway through the programme the descision to incorporate the angled deck was taken (SCB-125), and this was done on the last three ’27C ships before they left dock. The other ’27Cs and all but one of the 27As recieved their angled decks at their next refit. The Midway class were undergoing similar upgrades and recieved their angled decks along with their steam catapults. Because their refits were slightly later, they were a little better thought out, and being larger ships they were able to incorporate a third steam catapult on the angled deck. Midway and FDR had their portside deck edge lift at the forward edge of the angle as in the Essex class and the new Forrestals, but operational experience showed this made the lift useless during flying ops, so the third Midway class refit (Coral Sea) had her portside lift moved aft of the port catapult (similarly the follow on ‘Improved Forrestal’ or Kitty Hawk class also moved the port lift aft, as did all later US CV/CVNs).

The RN’s postwar carriers were all wartime designs updated, and initially all had their catapults whether hydraulic or steam mounted forward side by side as in the Essex class. When Eagle was reconstructed between 1959 and 1964, operational experience with angled deck carriers was enough to suggest moving one of the catapults from the foredeck to the angled deck, as the foredeck (Fly 1) was mostly required for deck parking. Just being able to leave several aircraft there during flying ops relieved a lot of pressure on the deck crew. Ark Royal recieved this modified flight deck layout during her 1967-70 modernisation. The French Clemenceau class were built with this layout from the start. So the evolution of flight deck procedure for the British and French Navies primarily was that the portside of the deck was for flying ops and the starboard side was for deck parking (mostly). This worked fine for the smaller decks of the these Navies, the USN with larger decks had more options available to them. The new generation of the RN carriers (CVA-01 class, 3 ships planned) was the result of further studies into carrier operations, which determined that if the forward catapult was moved to starboard then simltaneous launch and recovery became possible. Also, the angled deck would move completley over to port to become the ‘Parallell deck’ creating more deck parking space to staboard. In fact the wide deck wwas divided into three areas, Landing runway and waist cat to port, deck parking to starboard and outboard of the island even further to starboard there was a deck edge lift aft serving a wide ‘Alaska Highway’ and leading to the starborad forward catapult, so aircraft could be brought up from the hangar and launched without disturbing the deck park or interrupting recoveries.

On the existing British and French carriers, simltaneous launch and recovery was never truly possible, but was not considered particularly important either. during flight operations the ship was either launching, recovering or respotting aircraft on deck, all of which was carefully planned in advance. Aircraft were flown in packages throughout the day, eg four Phantoms and four Buccaneers together with a Gannet would be launched, then a flight of Sea King would be ranged on deck and launched. After that the next package would be spotted ready for launch, perhaps a couple of Bucc tankers or a recce Bucc and a relief Gannet etc. Once these were off the deck would be readied for the return of the first package, which would be spotted at fly one on recovery then if needed struck down to the hangar decks. In practice the deck crew could change from ‘Flying stations’ to recovery stations in a couple minutes, as long as it took to re spot any unlaunched aircraft clear of the runway. Returning aircraft did not turn up unexpectedly demanding to land on, Flyco would always have enough time to ready the deck for recovery. Even the crash Barrier needed between two to ten minutes to rig (depending on how well the deck crew were practiced) should the returning aircraft have an emergency. The ability to simltaneouly launch and recover aircraft is ‘nice to have’ but certainly not essential to carrier ops. More it is the fact that it implies a better thought out and generally larger deck that comes with it.

It should therefore be taken that the flight deck configuration of the modernised Essex class CVs should not be seen as contemporary with Ark Royal/Eagle post modernisation and the Clemenceaus, but with the earlier configurations of the RN carriers in the 50s as well as the Centaurs and Victorious.

I was always surprised the BN never attempted to modernise their type 41/61 frigates, but then cost would have been the major factor. Still, it shouldn’t have been too difficult to clear the after deck and add a hangar and flight deck for a patrol helicopter, and maybe some light AA guns as well. Remarkable how well they have lasted in service though, full credit to their crews for looking after them. The fact they are diesel powered rather than steam turbine powered may have had something to do with their longevity?