Good chance that Britain actually ignores the Eurofighter program and we have an Anglo-French fighter program with carrier capability as a deliverable ( the reason why France dropped out and went alone ). Basically a program similar to the Jaguar one which ends up with the Typhoon being similar to the OTL Rafale ( obviously with changes due to the need to split work 50:50 )
HMS EAGLE in the Falklands
- Thread starter flasheart
- Start date
Alas modern militaries are expensive and since nations don't tend to build Empire anymore they don't make money
Exactly
To make a reliable Sea Typhoon means you need to redesign the under carriage (strengthen and probably move), reinforce the whole air-frame and re-balance the whole aircraft. It will cost billions that the UK don't have in the 2000's. And that's before you find out that pilots can't see the carrier's deck when they land (the canards aren't in the right place for that).
The reaction of the Indian Navy, awkward silence, to this offer was telling on what they thought BAE could do.
That's what I was supporting, but, sadly, that ship has sailed when the UK choose the Hornet. It's redundant to buy (most likely building under license) the Hornet and then pay for the development of the Rafale (even if it's half), specially when you take into account that the Rafale is not what the RAF wants (a big aircraft with a big radar specialized in high altitude interception of bomber over the North Sea).
Ironically the F-14 D was pretty much exactly what the RAF wanted and I have no doubts that if Grumman for some reason had an aircraft production facility set up in the UK the RAF would have gone for it if they could persuade the treasury...and knowing the RAF the money for it would have come out of the RN's budget.
If it can't fit on a 65,000 ton carrier somebody has screwed up the design process quite badly since they fit on the Forrestals and they had a displacement of some 5,000 tons less and the RN's new CVs have the same catapults as the Nimitz class. Which means embarking USN Tomcats (probably the squadrons whose carriers are undergoing SLEEPS or reactor refuelings/major refits) when needed is a very useful thing the new carriers can do if needed, heck the same applies to any carrier born aircraft in the USN's current or planned inventory, this probably applies until the carriers of the CV90 class are decommissioned
Is the British design 65000 tons full load or standard because a Forrestal topped out at over 80000 tons full load.
SsgtC
Banned
They fit on Corral Sea so I don't see why they couldn't fit on the new Royal Navy carriers. Particularly if they have higher hangers (the main reason they weren't regularly deployed on the Midway class)
There is operate at a minimum standard and operate effectively. They occasionally did quals with nuggets flying jets with no weapons and lighter loads of fuel and were restricted to mil-power takeoffs.
https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/could-the-f-14-tomcat-operate-from-the-uss-coral-sea-an-1722586198
A divert to Midway in 1982 was a bit of a process in terms of recovery and launching:
https://theaviationgeekclub.com/boo...f-14-tomcats-were-diverted-to-the-uss-midway/
Its on the edge but I certainly think the new carrier (which is bigger) can take them. The main issue with the F-14 is it hasn't got a decent attack ability and its big, probably to big to embark often without compromises on air group size.
Which is probably why France still has the largest military of the EU member states - they still do have an empire and it still does make them money...
And that's why the US Navy has always balked at smaller carrier designs from the 1970s on. A lot of quantitative analysis was done by organizations like CNA to show that to operate the jets the US Navy likes to operate you have to have that 4.5 acres of sovereign US territory. Anything smaller leads to too many compromises.
To be fair to the Tomcat it did become rather good at droping ordnance in the later years of its service life but this took at fair bit of work and said work was only done in order to help fill the hole left by the Intruder's retirement
Actually from what I understand the Bombcat upgrade was a pretty cost effective and low effort affair because the main thing they did was marry it up with the LANTIRN pod which was straight off the shelf. There were more ambitious (and more costly) upgrades proposed but they didn't go anywhere.
SsgtC
Banned
No argument that it was marginal on a Midway. Just pointing it out that if something in the 50k ton range can handle it, something that's 60k+ should be able to as well. Though as pointed out up thread, it's size would likely have a negative impact on the size of the embarked air wing.
It’s worth noting that these carriers are gas turbine ships - that means they’re a lot bulkier for the same tonnage than steam turbine equivalents. That will probably push the deck size up substantially - Invincible wasn’t hugely smaller than Hermes, but was about half the weight from memory...
True enough.
But given what Gorshkov was clearly building, Nott's 1981 Defense White Paper sure looks penny wise and pound foolish.
That would be my fear, too. No, I think the Hornet really is the better fit for what they're designing.
The real question is what they'd follow on with once Hornet production lines are shut down, and by that time, the Tomcats won't be an option, either.