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Discussion
yellowjack said:
I'll humour this as a serious question.
No. HMS Queen Elizabeth, and HMS Prince Of Wales alongside in HMNB Portsmouth. With the Mary Rose, HMS Victory, and HMS M.33 (1915) in shot at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
Fair point - the ski-ramps confused me as I'd forgotten the new carriers had them.No. HMS Queen Elizabeth, and HMS Prince Of Wales alongside in HMNB Portsmouth. With the Mary Rose, HMS Victory, and HMS M.33 (1915) in shot at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
havoc said:
yellowjack said:
I'll humour this as a serious question.
No. HMS Queen Elizabeth, and HMS Prince Of Wales alongside in HMNB Portsmouth. With the Mary Rose, HMS Victory, and HMS M.33 (1915) in shot at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
Fair point - the ski-ramps confused me as I'd forgotten the new carriers had them.No. HMS Queen Elizabeth, and HMS Prince Of Wales alongside in HMNB Portsmouth. With the Mary Rose, HMS Victory, and HMS M.33 (1915) in shot at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
Sorry if "I'll humour this as a serious question" sounded abrupt, but there are some frightful bores on PH who are never happier than when they are trolling, and then 'dishing out whoosh parrots' playground style, so I'm often wary of taking such questions at face value.
yellowjack said:
Ah. Yes. Plenty of CGI images and deck plans of the proposed angled-deck catapult and arrestor wire design still floating around on the internet to confuse the unwary...
Sorry if "I'll humour this as a serious question" sounded abrupt, but there are some frightful bores on PH who are never happier than when they are trolling, and then 'dishing out whoosh parrots' playground style, so I'm often wary of taking such questions at face value.
I'm assuming that the single catapult was chosen in the end because it was cheaper?Sorry if "I'll humour this as a serious question" sounded abrupt, but there are some frightful bores on PH who are never happier than when they are trolling, and then 'dishing out whoosh parrots' playground style, so I'm often wary of taking such questions at face value.
irocfan said:
I'm assuming that the single catapult was chosen in the end because it was cheaper?
Again, I'll assume it's a serious question.No. There are no catapults, nor any arresting wires or other barrier assistance for recovering aircraft on the Royal navy's new carriers. It is a STOVL (Short Take Off, Vertical Landing) carrier and aside from helicopters of all shapes and sizes, and any Harriers that allied nations might operate from the deck (US Marine Corps AV-8B for example) the only fixed wing aircraft likely to launch from or recover onto them will be the F-35B aircraft we are currently purchasing for the RAF and Fleet Air Arm at great expense. A "ski-jump" ramp is fitted up front to assist such STOVL aircraft getting airborne at combat weight, but "conventional" fast jet fixed wing assets will not have suitable facilities upon which to land or take off.
If the design had matured as an angled flight-deck 'CATOBAR' (Catapult Take Off, Barrier Assisted Recovery) asset, then the UK might well have been able to buy "off the shelf" F/A-18 Hornets or Superhornets from the US, and the bill for building the carriers would be larger but the lower purchase and operating costs of the embarked air wing would have evened out the equation. but all that is academic now, as the vessels were designed and built in such a way that retrofitting CATOBAR equipment is a complete non starter due to lack of internal space for such equipment. We are pretty much stuck with the two ships as they are, now, but at least we have some aircraft carriers again, a force projection asset which has been lacking in the RN since the last of the Invincible Class (HMS Illustrious) was retired in 2014.
HMS Illustrious (top) alongside HMS Queen Elizabeth, her eventual replacement. The new carriers are a great deal larger than the three-ship class they now replace.
yellowjack said:
irocfan said:
I'm assuming that the single catapult was chosen in the end because it was cheaper?
Again, I'll assume it's a serious question.No. There are no catapults, nor any arresting wires or other barrier assistance for recovering aircraft on the Royal navy's new carriers. It is a STOVL (Short Take Off, Vertical Landing) carrier and aside from helicopters of all shapes and sizes, and any Harriers that allied nations might operate from the deck (US Marine Corps AV-8B for example) the only fixed wing aircraft likely to launch from or recover onto them will be the F-35B aircraft we are currently purchasing for the RAF and Fleet Air Arm at great expense. A "ski-jump" ramp is fitted up front to assist such STOVL aircraft getting airborne at combat weight, but "conventional" fast jet fixed wing assets will not have suitable facilities upon which to land or take off.
If the design had matured as an angled flight-deck 'CATOBAR' (Catapult Take Off, Barrier Assisted Recovery) asset, then the UK might well have been able to buy "off the shelf" F/A-18 Hornets or Superhornets from the US, and the bill for building the carriers would be larger but the lower purchase and operating costs of the embarked air wing would have evened out the equation. but all that is academic now, as the vessels were designed and built in such a way that retrofitting CATOBAR equipment is a complete non starter due to lack of internal space for such equipment. We are pretty much stuck with the two ships as they are, now, but at least we have some aircraft carriers again, a force projection asset which has been lacking in the RN since the last of the Invincible Class (HMS Illustrious) was retired in 2014.
HMS Illustrious (top) alongside HMS Queen Elizabeth, her eventual replacement. The new carriers are a great deal larger than the three-ship class they now replace.
irocfan said:
I can be an arse - but that was a serious Q. Looked at the pics of the 2 types on my phone and thought that both had catapult That being said, to me (as a design and planning doofus), it seems madness not to give the new carriers as much flexibility as possible (ie 'normal' planes & VTOL/STOL)
I'm not having a personal dig at you in my reply, but it has become something of a habit for some posters on PH to ask stupid questions deliberately, only to then round on anyone naive enough to not get the 'joke' and give a serious answer. I'm never sure who these folk are, so I was just "heading the whoosh parrot off at the pass", so to speak, in the first part of my reply.As for your suggestion? I Absolutely agree. Why not design and build a carrier capable of operating both catapult launched and STOVL aircraft types? Offset cats and a 'ski-jump' ramp could work, and the STOVL types could land on any operating surface capable of handling conventional jets. Even building in sufficient machinery space for future upgrade to cats would have seemed sensible, as it would not tie the Navy to what basically amounts to one single aircraft type for the projected life of these significantly expensive carriers. Plus fitting it from the outset with cat/trap gear would enable it to embark aircraft from allied nations like France and the USA. It would also have allowed for fixed wing AEW, command & control, and anti submarine assets to be included within an embarked air wing. All things the RN/FAA operated successfully in the past from significantly smaller aircraft carriers. But, as ever it was, defence procurement remains a dark art and a law unto itself...
Edited by yellowjack on Thursday 12th December 16:12
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