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AHC 1: STOL A-10
There has been a recent trend in AHC towards highly-technical discussions of hardware or logistics: best possible 1942 tank, was anti-morale bombing actually effective, across the high frontier: a Big Gemini space TL, British Weapons enter service a year earlier and so on. These are more to my taste than ImperialFederationWank and has piqued my interest.
Coincidentally I have been daydreaming about making the Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers better: not in a dramatic way such as installing catapults (the lack of steam makes this difficult and electric catapults are thought to be inadequate?), but in an incremental way that improves the carriers without ginormous changes. Some of these ideas are unusual but I'd like to know if they are possible and what would be required to make that happen. So I thought I'd ask you guys
So my first idea revolves around a STOL A10. The A10's unusual design has midframe podded engines and its function (close ground support) would be valuable for a carrier-supported land invasion. Problem is the A10-s takeoff length is ~1200m/4000ft and HMS QE's flightdeck is ~280m/920 ft, so no-go. Some people have played with the concept of a STOL A10, which would at least enable it to land on the QE filghtdeck.
So your mission, should you choose to accept it, is: with a POD after 1998, can you feasibly build a STOL A10 with a takeoff/landing length of under 900ft? VTOL is unnecessary.