No, turbine engines proved more difficult to scale up than people originally thought they would. They weren't used for major warships until until 1972 (at least in the USN). Early to mid 60s is really the absolute earliest IMOAt work.
Turbine for carrier aircraft?
Heck, get better funding for Whittle and straighten out the manufacturing/production/design of things and you get a turbine in an airframe in the early to mid 40's.
Another five to ten years working things out/through and you possibly the get carrier machines in the early 50's.
With a war on? Shave things down some more if given the changes above.
Remember, Whittle first put forward his idea in the 30's. With others proposing kind'a similar ideas earlier than that.
Then begs the question; what generates the steam for the catapults? Or do we just have a big harrier carrier?
Then begs the question; what generates the steam for the catapults? Or do we just have a big harrier carrier?
You could go with combined cycle. Exhaust from turbine heats water to generate steam. Steam used on its own turbine. They are pretty efficient.
The main problem for naval gas turbine design were low-corrosion, low-creep blade alloys with longevity good enough to be competitive to steam turbines. May be even single-crystal blade manufacturing was necessary to reduce creep, although i am not sure. IOTL, these alloys were developed concurrently for American and Soviet space program combustion chambers around 1965, therefore earlier date for naval gas turbine is not practical.No, turbine engines proved more difficult to scale up than people originally thought they would. They weren't used for major warships until until 1972 (at least in the USN). Early to mid 60s is really the absolute earliest IMO
You could go with combined cycle. Exhaust from turbine heats water to generate steam. Steam used on its own turbine. They are pretty efficient.
The Royal Navy were in the forefront of investigating marine gas turbines and as SsgtC noted they ended up being more difficult to scale up to larger outputs so I'm not sure you can shave off massive amounts of time. Unless I've overlooked others the first class of ships that relied on just gas turbines were the Type 21 frigates with the lead ship HMS Amazon being ordered in 1969 and commissioned in 1974. The first Invincible-class carrier was ordered in 1973 so with design times it looks as though the Admiralty trusted gas turbines by the later 1960s, even if you push things a bit I dont think you can get gas turbines powers carriers before the late 1970s.
You could go with combined cycle. Exhaust from turbine heats water to generate steam. Steam used on its own turbine. They are pretty efficient.
4 shaft Olympus with exhaust steam turbines - would that not defeat the whole objective reducing space/weight and crew numbers?A CVA-01 type carrier laid down in the late 60s/early 70s an 8 x Olympus driving 4 shaft affair would offer about 180,000 - 200,000 SHP
4 shaft Olympus with exhaust steam turbines - would that not defeat the whole objective reducing space/weight and crew numbers?