No I didn’t and it doesn’t chance my sentiment a bit :dev2:

I saw Ark Royal only last week in Pompey Dockyard’s no 3 basin, she still looks in good shape (having been paid off soon after a major refit). Although her Phalanx guns have gone and the type 996 has been removed from the mainmast, her type 1022 is till in place and she still looks every inch the Fleet Flagship. Curious how last year the government was in such a rush to announce the details of her disposal (last autumn wasn’t it?), yet here we are at the start of April and still no word…

I’m sure the US expressed similar wishes as CVA-01 was cancelled. Through life costs will feature the same recurring costs as any other catobar carrier….additional personnel, training, sparing and logistics and operational costs like throwing used wires over the side after the determined no. of traps. Wholelife even ordinary cat operation costs.

Looks to me like someone confused the figure to shift to CATOBAR capability with the figure to convert one ship. North of £2bn though seems a lot to pay for payload/range benefits that are scarcely essential. Do we think, for eaxample, we’d be unable to do a Libya with a STOVL carrier flying off 400nm ranged strikers….would we be unable to tackle a recapture of the Falklands if we can only stand off 500nm from the islands putting precision CASOM fire in?.

As Liger notes….if that £2bn is going to jeopardise Carrier Strike isnt it best to get the ships and the capability first and evaluate requirements as they evolve?.

I don’t believe it will be that expensive and it won’t jeopardise the project. STOVL at 65000 tonnes means a one trick pony with a lot of wasted potential. Carriers aren’t just about strike aircraft, Just as important are the AEW, ASW, COD, SAR, all of which are much more capable when CATOBAR capable platforms are used instead of STOVL.
CATOBAR:
AEW=Hawkeye / UAV
ASW=Merlin / UAV
COD=Greyhound
SAR=Merlin/Lynx

STOBAR:
AEW=Merlin ASaC
ASW=Merlin
COD=Merlin
SAR=Merlin

LPH capability remains unaffected whichever way you go of course. Also if F-35B gets canned, you are left with a couple of oversized LPHs. If the ‘C gets canned, there are alternatives (Rafale, Super Hornet).

Is everybody taking the DT story as fact then?

Because clearly the £488m is just the cost of EMALS. What if the British government also knows that the story about the CVF being easily convertable was a load of old baloney? Not to mention the BAE fees in converting it!

If the US is so concerned about the UK getting it, perhaps they could send us some of their military aid!

When the papers publish negative stories everyone round here seems keen to accept them as fact; also the article does say that the cost of installation is a further £400million. BAe now has much less ‘wriggle room’ in negotiations for the conversion work becasue the customer now knows the true prices.

The thing I don’t understand is where the £1.8 billion figure for CATOBAR conversion of PoW comes from. I thought CVF was designed from the outset with future conversion in mind?

Exactly. I smell a rat… 😡

Is this official position based on engineering realities, or is it a political official position like “Phantoms can’t work on the Essex class”, despite the fact that the much heavier EKA-3 operated from Essex carriers during Vietnam.

(Not the best example; Essex would need new catapults for the F-4, but you get the point.)

Essexes couldn’t take Phantoms because they landed at much higher speed than Skywarriors (ie greater kinetic energy), and take off was assisted by full afterburner whist being catapulted. Afterburners and wooden flight decks don’t mix. The fight deck of an Essex would have to be completely rebuilt to handle Phantoms, and by the mid 60s when this was apparent their was too little remaining life in the Essex class to justify this (The last two attack carrier Essexes, Hancock and Oriskany decommissioned in 1976. The rest had been phased out over the preceding decade). As to CdG and F-35C, you would have to check the max capabilities of her catapults and arrestor wires against the published takeoff and landing weights/speed for the Lightning. I suspect politics has a hand in this as much as engineering (Lightning and Rafale are in competition for sales after all). CdG’s cats are American made C-13s, though slightly shorter than those on a Nimitz, they use the current standard nose tow attachment shuttle, and can even launch wire bridle types like the SEM (by switching the shuttle over). EMALS use the same shuttle attachments as the preceding steam catapults.

It is not much clear….

From The Hindu link….

I really doubt that statement and hope it is a typo and meant 24 or 34,000 tonnes in displacement. Because 14,000 tonnes is just toooo low for a completed hull of a 38-40,000 tonne carrier… If it is actually 14,000 tonne displacement, i really doubt if the entire hull have been completed and if the hull floated out is just the aft section of the carrier… similar to the way Cavour was built (2-3) large blocks.

Or probably, he meant 14,000 tonnes of steel used so far….??

From the (scant) photographic evidence available, the new ship is being built bows and mid section primarily rather than the Cavour’s mid-and-stern method. The photo posted looks more like an out of focus shot of the old Vikrant (now a museum ship) rather then the new vessel, the presence of an island with mast is the clincher for me as the new ship couldn’t possibly have them installed if there is only 14,000 tonnes of hull completed. I seem to recall the IN stating a few years ago that the ship would be assembled to around 24,000 tonnes before being floated out as the dry dock wasn’t big enough to take the full sized hull, and final assembly would be in a floating dry dock (as with Cavour). This seems to be an unexpected development, and the dockyard probably needs an influx of cash given the current economic climate.

Last I heard from sources in the region, Brazil’s carrier building ‘aspirations’ were to build three ships, two for themselves and one for neighbour Argentina (who would chip in with costs of course to share the burden). This was aimed more for the end of this decade meaning the work would be carried out in the 2020s when finances had improved. A bit like the Russian carrier plans, long on ambition, short on actual steel cutting for the forseeable future. If the Brazillians really want to expand their Frigate fleet in the near term, there are four Type 22B3s recently laid up and for sale in the UK. The Brazillians are already familiar with most of the systems aboard these ships having previously purchased the four batch 1 Type 22s (which are still in service today), and would certainly bridge the gap until any new build frigates could be commissioned (minimum 6-7 years from now). Of course, it all depends on the state of their finances.

CVF will have

• 2 RR MT30 generators 36MW each
• 2 Wartsila diesel generators 9MW each
• 2 Wartsila diesel generators 11MW each

I also believe they will be fitted with 2 emergency diesel generators of 2MW each.

As CVF has IEP they can just run what generators are needed for the power demands at that time.

In answer to the original question, when tied up alongside in port, most of the engines will be shut down for maintenance. The power requirements for a ship sitting still in harbour are much less than one under way at sea. Also when a ship is in refit, usually all the internal power sources are shut down and power is provided from the quayside, as required. So no, the ships engines are not running all the time. On the Invincible class for example, power is provided by four RR Olympus Gas Turbines, but when cruising at sea the ship only needs one to maintain 18 knots and provide power to the ships systems. Startup on the other three GTs is literally a couple of minutes from cold to full power, normally practiced when launching Harriers (to give maximum wind over deck), but is only needed in such circumstances for a couple of minutes at a time, after which the ship throttles back to cruising speed once more (not least to save fuel, with all four running the ship burns 30 tonnes of fuel an hour, about the same as a road tanker you see refuelling gas stations!). CVF will operate in a similar manner, only going to full power when ‘turning into the wind’ to launch or recover aircraft.