Aircraft Carriers

[Nick]

Why not...... build a table sized one (1/72?) and use it for a Fleet Air Arm What-If one day?

This could be a group build for a Nats one year. Which year, I couldn't say!

Nick  :G

[Captain Canada]

Canada, being so cheap, might have reconfigured the Bonnie into a Jump Ship, well, that's my guess anyway !

It would have been way cool if we would have grabbed an ex-USN Super, and then we could have flown all sorts of goodies ! Like the beautiful RCN Phantom that I'm just about to start detailing and decaling...looks awful sweet in that old RN/RCN two gray !

Thanks for the line on those little roundels, now, where do you find the little 600 or 700 size a/c ?

Cheers,
    Toad

[Martin H]

Remember that carrier deck section I had on the sig stand at the 2000 nationals Radish?  that was the stern section of the Furious (aka CVA-01). the other 12 feet of her were sitting in my garage at the time as the Sig stand was a little bit to small for her :-/

As for a 1/72nd scale version  well that what my one was. all 15 feet of her and 3 foot at the hips. :TT   I had to scrap her as she didnt take to well to a leaking garage roof. But the island and the original plans are still around so she will (hopefully) one day sail again.

Heres a few pics of the Mk 1 as she was being built and on her maiden public outting

[Supertom]

Hey guys,

Anyone seen these?

CVF

[Radish]

Well, IF they ever happen, HMS Improbable and HMS Unlikely will probably be a couple of rowing boats with guys armed with paper darts!
The basic problem?
Good idea.....then the bad guys start cutting costs, downgrading, etc., same old story.
We always add our usual "teist" however, in that all the changes/downgrading add to the cost/time of development/building, so that it becomes more expensive to build a LESS capable project. Then we throw money at it to upgrade to the original spec!1
Brilliant!!
I'll go for the rowing boat!!
Anyway, the projected service entry-date is bound to slip. If we see them before 2020 I'm a Chinaman. The F-35 will, by then be either"past it, too expensive, knackered, or innapropriate2, or something else,  such as likewise delayed. then we'll prevaricate (good word!!) and ask for something else, like the F-18M or something.
:ar:
Over and out,
Hu Flung Dung.    

[uk 75]

The UK did a decent business in the 50s selling light fleet carriers to the Commonwealth (Canada, Australia and India) and to others (Argentina, Brazil and France and the Netherlands).

If instead if embarking in the US style CVA 01 plan the UK had lived within its means and built a UK equivalent of the Essex class capable of taking F8s, A4s, Etendards, and later planes (sorry, no F4s as these need aircraft carriers bigger than the UK Ark Royal).

The airgroup for each ship (depending on country) would have been either a mixed fighter, bomber and ASW group or an ASW group with light fighter defence.

A successful design might have been built in the following numbers:

5 for the UK

2 for Australia

1-2 for Canada

1-2 for India

1 for Netherlands

1 for Brazil

France and Argentina might have been persuaded as well, replacing Arromanches with a licence built ship and Indepencia with a UK-built Veinticinco de Mayo.

Best thing about these ships is that they give some great airgroup options.

[Geoff_B]

Had a quick look at "Rebuilding the Royal Navy" and Norman Freidmans "Royal Navy Aircraft Carriers" last night before bed. Ther was a 1954 design for a medium carrier to replace the Centaur class  of similar size but better designed for handling modern jet aircraft, this concept was then dropped to concentrate on the CVA-01 design. I suppose it was later re-kindled once the CVA-01 program had crashed and burned.

In Freidmans book is another design dating from the early 50's for a Colosuss sized ship (700ft) but much wider and incorporating the latest carrier technology, Steam cats, angled deck (but still with hull mounted lifts but not on the flight line).

Cheers

Geoff

[Joe C-P]

How about something like the Carter Administration's CVV? Either as an export, or as the basis for an RN design.  

[Hobbes]

There's also a trimaran carrier concept:


The Royal Navy has built a trimaran for trials:
DERA site

Popular Mechanics article

[Gary]

How about taking the SeaStealth kit, widening the upper flat decking, adding a 350th scale low observable island, 350th scale Sea Raptors and an angled landing deck and you have a catamaran carrier with somestealth built in.  

[lancer]

I love the idea of a catamaran or trimaran carrier. More stable, possibly the capability to carry more aircraft. But, I'm no ship expert.  

[Hobbes]

ISTR catamarans and (to a lesser degree) trimarans can only be scaled up to a certain point. Beyond that, the stresses on the link between the hulls become unmanageable. Can't find any data on this, though.

The US Navy is testing a large catamaran:
HSV X-1
This is basically a commercial ferry, with some modifications for military use.


Theoretical discussion of hull shapes

[Nick]

The Australians used a catamaran for supply runs between Oz and East Timor between June 1999 and May 2001. It was made by the same company, INCAT, who provided the US Army ship.

HMAS Jervis Bay Facts & Figures
During her two year charter to the Royal Australian Navy HMAS Jervis Bay completed 107 trips covering some 100,000 nautical miles, carried 20,000 passengers and 430 military vehicles. In addition, an impressive 5,600 tonnes of stores were shipped.
HMAS Jervis Bay picture

Nick B)  

[Joe C-P]

Terribly unmaneuverable; it'd have a huge turning radius at that size.  As Hobbes said, even today such a design would be vulnerable to flexing damage between the hulls.

The trimaran below is really a single hull with outriggers, so most of the buoyancy is in the central hull, with the others providing stability and, unlike the twin displacement hull design, maneuverability. Also, it gives a layered torpedo defense, since if properly designed it should be able to handle the loss of buoyancy in one of the outriggers.

JoeP

[Marty]

I think there's a future for these designs, a 20-25,000 ton ship with one to two dozen VSTOL aircraft, a VLS battery, 500 or so troops and maybe an embarked LCAC type vehicle, similar to a cross between the Shimokita and the Principe D'Austrias types. I think that the day of the big CVN is over, they're too expensive to build and operate and too vulnerable IMHO.  The Swath type hull, a catamarran or a tri-cat hull makes a lot of sense.

Marty