Ah, but part of the reason Foch… ok, Sao Paulo, is in such good shape [and can be kept that way] is the parts removed from Clemenceau… keep Cleme in commission somewhere, and both will be in worse shape, and be under refit more of the time.

And what would De Gualle have done for propellors for those few years… 😀

So you’re saying a ship will run better with old second hand parts than with new recently manufactured ones? I know this is stretching the point a bit for the sake of argument, but if both ships had gone to South America then new parts would have to be manufactured rather than relying on an ever diminishing supply of second hand ones. CdG would have had to have new propellors, at a higher cost of course but it would have happened. Cannibalising old ships may be cheaper than buying new parts but is a finite resource.

Yes.

But the SuE’s success was heavily liked to the Exocet’s. Whil it was a good aircraft, it suffered of some drawback, like insufficient autonomy and range, and limited payload (hence limited firepower), which is sad since the Foch and Clemenceau could only carry a small air group. Having had more capable aircrafts would have been a serious plus…

For that matter, when comparing our Crusaders/Etendards/SuE-equipped Foch and Clemenceau carriers, with the british Buccanners/Phantoms-equipped Ark Royal carrier, I’d have gladly traded the first for the former…

Could you clarify that last sentence? You have in effect said you would trade the Clemenceau for the Clemenceau, which is just a little confusing!

But the weight makes a difference to the deck strength needed (it’s been suggested – I don’t know how accurately – that this would limit F-35B operations from Invincibles), & to the capacity (max weight, not just dimensions) of the lifts. And those few feet make a difference when you’re designing mini-carriers. It is undeniable that the minimum size for a ship which can operate the F-35B is greater than the minimum size for Harriers, which is what I said. And there’s a difference between can operate off a ship, & can operate efficiently off a ship.

What would you recommend as the minimum practical size ship for F-35B?

Minimum practical size would hinge on the minimum number of aircraft required to provide an air group of useful size, for CAP duties and/or strike missions. In my book anything below 20,000tons is a wasted opportunity, as for example the cost of increasing a 12,000ton CV design to 20,000ton+ is relatively small but allows a much more useful air group to be embarked. An F-35B can theoretically be operated from a Frigate’s heli deck (assuming it was stressed to take the weight of course) but what would be the use of a single aircraft? This is why oft quoted proposals like the 80s Skyhook never got any where, in D K Browns’ book ‘Rebuilding The Royal Navy’ he mentions that his team were often asked to carry out design studies to show if a destroyer could be adapted to carry a couple of harriers, and it was certainly feasible but uneconomic as the support facilities and crew required would be the same for up to six or more aircraft. Also the artists impressions of the Skyhook proposal show a ship with an aft helideck big enough for a sea king, so why not just land the harriers there and save a lot of bother? 😀

If your country can only afford one CV then something between 20-30,000tons would be desireable as this gives greater flexibility in operations and the increase in cost is not that great over a smaller ship, as the steel is not the biggest cost in building a carrier by any means. I don’t think the Invincibles (or any other contemporary small CV) would have any insurmountable difficulties in operating the F-35B, having been on board Invincible and Ark Royal on several occassions myself I remember how reinforced the flight deck was viewed from the hangar deck. The flight deck is the strength deck on these ships and was built take very heavy loads such as fully laden Harriers landing back on deck as well as fully laden Chinooks and Sea Kings (no light weights any of them), and even then reinforcing it further would be a straight forward engineering task, one which the RN has experience of with previous CVs.

Actually, if I was pickking the ideal size for a Hypothetical carrier, I would trade ‘ship’ systems such as an extensive radar suite and weapons other than CIWS and C3 (or is it now C4?) capability in order to push the size of the ship up to 40,000tons if possible, moving these ‘lost’ capabilities to escorts whilst leaving space and weight in the carrier design for later installation if needed. The biggest battle a carrier will ever face is the one to be built in the first place, and keeping the initial costs down is one way to win that battle (HMS Ocean cost little more than a frigate by keeping the ships systems simple, no air search radar or missile systems for example, though these could be added at a later date if required), so I would aim for a ship that coulld operate a medium sized air group (including Strike/Fighters, AEW and ASW types as well as facilities for LPH operations) whilst keeping the ship simple and planning for later upgrades. 40,000tons brings the ship to the threshold of CTOL operations thus opening up the options for operational use. Plan to fight your own short sighted politicians before you plan to fight your nations enemies 😉

The almost finished Cavour has a deck-edge elevator and a conventional one….

Yes it does, but the Italian Navy primarily operates in the Mediterranean where the weather is generally nowhere near as bad as the North Atlantic, and the deck edge lift is fitted well aft behind the island to avoid sea damage.

The Thales brochure seems to indicate that Searchwater 2000AEW can fit into the S-2 Tracker’s existing retractible radome.

Sadly, the Tracker seems to be becoming a rare beast. Does anyone know if any are left in storage in the United States?

I heard earlier this year that the stock of airworthy airframes left at Davis Monathan Air Base had dwindled to about 18 due to spares recovery on the rest. The Tracker has a well proven sturdy airframe, which when fitted with turbine engines can compete well with more modern designs. Perhaps a small production run of new aircraft could provide the solution to several nations needs as the aircraft are still as popular as ever, and new airframes will obviously have a much longer service life than refitted forty or fifty year old planes.

I think you are referring to the post CVA-01 cancellation offer by the US Government in 1966 of THREE Essex class CVs to the RN in order to keep it’s main ally in the carrier club. The actual ships have not been named, although most writers assumed they would be three of the six SCB-27C/ SCB-125 modernisations (ie two steam catapults, angled deck, hurricane bow etc) but now it seems they may have been offering unmodernised vessel held in reserve which could be modernised to British standards as a ‘blank slate’ (British catapults, arrestor gear, radars etc). The offer was turned down on the flimsy excuse of incompatability with existing British equipment (incomprehensible nonsense), when the truth was that the government had already decided to abandon carrier aviation altogether, primarily for financial reasons but publicly they decided to concoct bogus and unsupportable justifications for this policy ( if I sound a little wound up about this, it is because I am allergic to stupidity and hypocrisy).
The RAF top brass st the time thought if they could get the carrier force disbanded then the funds for the ships and their aircraft could be transferred to the Air Force budget (The RAAF were thinking the same thing when they persuaded the Aussie government to abandon plans to replace HMAS Melbourne), but funds cut from one part of the defence budget are almost never reallocated to another part. Instead they tend to be swallowed up by some failing government social program or pet project and are lost forever. The RAF didn’t get their beloved TSR 2s, nor did they get the proposed replacement for the carrier force, the F-111K, which was also cancelled shortly afterwards. Instead they had to make do with second hand Buccaneers from the rapidly shrinking Fleet Air Arm (which the RAF had been deriding for years as too slow and too short ranged, oddly when it became the RAFs primary strike aircraft they began to sing it’s praises!), Phantoms diverted from Navy orders became the RAFs primary interceptor and the AEW radars from now redundant FAA Gannets were retrofitted to ageing Shackleton MPAs. Hardly the result the RAF was hoping for in 66.
The Aussie BPE will be comparable in size to Invincible, actually somewhat larger, but as they will have a floodable dock aft the aviation facilities will balance out closer to the British ship. If properly refitted, Invincible would be viable for at least twenty plus years depending on who gets her and how well they look after her.
Hermes/Viraat and Cavour are very similar in size although the older ship has a larger flight deck due to her angled deck extension, something that would benefit carriers not intended to operate CTOL aircraft as flight deck space is always at a premium.

As to wether or not Hermes actually operated USN F-4Bs, I suppose seeing is believing:
http://img113.imageshack.us/my.php?image=hmshermesr120030abd8.jpg
FG1s as part of Hermes air group would have been employed primarily for air defence, and although the problems you have raised would have made the situation less than ideal, the intention was to ‘hold on’ until CVA-03 was built (CVA-02 was to replace Victorious in 1972, CVA-02 Ark Royal in 1976, CVA-03 Hermes by 1980 and CVA-04 Eagle by 1984, my calculations based on the original construction schedule and likely delays).
The Crusader would have been easier to operate but was slower than the phantom and had less payload, so was less appealing on paper to RN planners, who were looking beyond the existing flat tops the CVA-01 class. I have always thought that the Jaguar would have emerged in the 70s in Naval strike form (not just the french Jaguar M, which was not fully developed) and would have been easier to operate from smaller British decks.
Hermes port catapult could have been extended further if needed as it ran on a fore and aft axis with no obstructions behind for some distance. Upgrading her arrestor gear to DAX11 standard would have solved the recovery problem, and the angled deck could also have been extended forwards (as was done to Charles de Gaulle) to improve safety margins. My point is that a lot of untruths have been circulated about the British CV force of the 60s by those who wanted to justify the stupid descision to withdraw them from service.