Yeah, history seems to indicate that good naval fighters will be solid land fighters, but not the other way around.
. This was studied in 89' as stopgap between rafale and crusader. Clémenceau could launch à hornet... With a couple of AAMs and little infernal fuel.There was a thread a few years ago about that and IIRC the BS4A catapults on the Clem and Foch lack the power to launch a Hornet with any sort of useful fuel and weapons load. The smallest carrier capable of operating Hornets would have been the HMS Ark Royal with her BS5A and BS5 catapults. I can't recall the Essex, but there is a table on catapult power somewhere in here that you can match against the Hornets weights.
Bs4a catapults were 50 m long, not enough for a hornet.