The new Royal Navy carriers, what's on the flight deck?

[darthspud]

Can conventional carrier aircraft land on the new RN carriers? Does it have arrestor wires, etc?

Not really and nope.
No arrestor gear or catapults fitted
Conventional landing /take-off possible if the a/c was ok with a ramp and had enough power to do it unaided.
It's effectively a through deck Cruiser masquerading as a Carrier, capable of operating Helos and the Clusterfcuk that is F35B

If the second ship is ever used I expect it'll replace Ocean/Bulwark as the R.M. carrier/hq ship for littoral campaigns/humanitarian work.
I seriously doubt the second one will ever be commissioned into R.N. and I expect it'll be sold to Brazil/India/scrapyard in Mumbai.

[wuzak]

Can conventional carrier aircraft land on the new RN carriers? Does it have arrestor wires, etc?

Not really and nope.
No arrestor gear or catapults fitted
Conventional landing /take-off possible if the a/c was ok with a ramp and had enough power to do it unaided.
It's effectively a through deck Cruiser masquerading as a Carrier, capable of operating Helos and the Clusterfcuk that is F35B

If the second ship is ever used I expect it'll replace Ocean/Bulwark as the R.M. carrier/hq ship for littoral campaigns/humanitarian work.
I seriously doubt the second one will ever be commissioned into R.N. and I expect it'll be sold to Brazil/India/scrapyard in Mumbai.

So, they could launch Su-35, but not recover them!

In the sabre-rattling mood he is in, I think our PM would buy one if it were offered to him. He blathered something about the possibility of having some F-35Bs as part of the mix of F-35s we are buying so that they could operate off the two LHDs we have purchased.

Not that I understand Australia's need for LHDs.

[rickshaw]

The LHDs are part of the long, ongoing development of the Australian Maritime Strategy.   It started back in the 1980s with the first Fiji Coup and has slowly been developed through the Somalia intervention and the East Timor crisis.   Australia is heavily dependent on maritime trade, it's time we started thinking about the implications of that.  We live between three oceans and a major sea, most of our trade traverses those waters and over two thirds of the world's trade goes through the South China Sea to our North.   We need to be able to influence events in our region and having an amphibious capability ensures we can do that.

While the Dear Leader might have said he wants F-35Bs on the LHDs, they are not equipped to operate them and adding them would only come at the expense of their original mission.  Army would not be happy about that, as it would compromise their ability to put ashore and sustain the forces they've been planning for, ever since they decided to purchase them.   Navy would love to have them but Air would hate them to be under Navy control.    As the LHDs would, in any scenario where air power is required be operating in concert with the USN, putting a handful of F-35Bs onboard would be pointless.   In the scenarios where we are operating solo, it is cheaper to use in-flight refuelling and flying aircraft from the mainland or nearby bases to the troublespot and if necessary, operating from a captured air base there.

[MikeD]

four marinised Apaches

I'm pretty sure that all of the British built Apaches are already marinised - it was part of the original requirement that they could operate from Ocean, the Invincibles and the assault ships. I know they deployed on Ellamy (Libya) on board Ocean.

[lenny100]

yes all  the uk built apaches have been built to go to sea with manual folding rotors and also the same engine as the merlin, which give more power and is designed from the start marinised, i belive the us is now looking at these upgrades also as they were impresed by the better performance over us built craft

[Gondor]

yes all  the uk built apaches have been built to go to sea with manual folding rotors and also the same engine as the merlin, which give more power and is designed from the start marinised, i belive the us is now looking at these upgrades also as they were impresed by the better performance over us built craft

That's a change then!

Gondor

[pyro-manic]

VF-1 Valkyries.

1:100 Macross VF-1J "Valkyrie FRS.2" - Royal Navy paint scheme by dizzyfugu, on Flickr

Well, there you go! Great minds, and all that....

[scooter]

VF-1 Valkyries.

1:100 Macross VF-1J "Valkyrie FRS.2" - Royal Navy paint scheme by dizzyfugu, on Flickr

Well, there you go! Great minds, and all that....

Hey now, I *did* mention Veritechs-

Veritechs, the various flavors of Star Wars -Wing fighters, COD and AEW Runabouts.
Swordfish, Avengers, F3N (P/F-47) Thunderbolts, UA-1s and AD-5W AEWs

[Dizzyfugu]

Amazingly, this rather elegant Royal Navy version is actually 'authentic'! It comes from a VF-1 source book profile, which I tried to incorporate as good as possible on a small 1:100 kit. Japanese designers were well ahead of the Royal Navy. 

Suits the VF-1 very well, nevertheless! 

[RLBH]

four marinised Apaches

I'm pretty sure that all of the British built Apaches are already marinised - it was part of the original requirement that they could operate from Ocean, the Invincibles and the assault ships. I know they deployed on Ellamy (Libya) on board Ocean.

The very thing then!

Sounds good to me...but why Hornets and F-35s ?\

I'd also trade the Apache for the Cobra.

And we gotta have Osprey !

Hornets and F-35s because they're the best thing going that we could plausibly buy for fleet air defence/strike. If I was really pushing it, I'd throw a four-ship detachment of EA-18Gs on there too...  Some older airframes are prettier, but even in my fantasy world where QUEEN ELIZABETH entered service two years ago and is currently steaming around the eastern Mediterranean, we'd want to put the latest and greatest stuff on them. Probably use additional F-18s to make up numbers whilst we wait for the F-35 to enter service.

The Apache is already in the supply and training loops, doesn't make sense to procure a new airframe to operate a dozen or so at the most. Osprey... looks nice, certainly good at its' job, but expensive and complex. The Merlin has a bigger cabin on a smaller footprint - both physical and logistical.

[McColm]

would the French be using it as well?

[Weaver]

...like how this Gladiator is

That was pretty much how the Swordfish I saw looked like Scoot'

Reminds me of the old comment about motorcycle frames. Release a sparrow in the middle of the frame: if it gets out, you need more cross-bracing.... 

Where'd you read that H?  It's patently untrue in respect to a featherbed (the yardstick for a good handling frame back when it counted in the sixties).  You could release an albatross in the middle of one of them and it'd get out.

I think it was somebody talking about specialised racing frames, but it was so long ago that I can't remember properly.

The featherbed was only the yardstick for good handling because most other things at the time were so bad. Geometry-wise, it's not brilliant: it's main advantages were that it was wide, it was made from decent-quality tube, and the suspension at either end was better than average quality. Even then, they had to modify it by adding a headstock brace later, and.... oh, excuse me, that'll be the Norton Owners' Club lynch-mob at the door...

[zenrat]

But it was better than the then current Triumph frames (something Edward Turner refused to recognise) and thus the Triton was born...
...and the TriBSA and my personal favourite the Grumph.