WI Eagle instead of Ark Royal?

Just as an aside, does anyone know how much it cost to develop the Sea Harrier and build 28 by mid 1982?
 
Just as an aside, does anyone know how much it cost to develop the Sea Harrier and build 28 by mid 1982?

I know that the unit cost was £12m in 1979, and I can't imagine that the development costs would have been particularly high.
 
Not particularly high, it was navalised GR3 from the engine intakes back. But it was an entirely new front fuselage and the Blue Fox radar had to be developed from the Lynx Sea Spray radar, tens of millions of pounds would be reasonable I'd guess. Added to this would be the 1975 order of 24 Sea Harriers, which considering the inflation of the 70s and the price of 12 million in 1979 I think maybe 9 million each is reasonable. The whole Sea Harrier project up to 1975 might have commited to expending 250 million pounds.

The amount of money expended by the RN in the wake of CVA 01 cancellation to get a seriously inferior capability looks breathtakingly large.
 

abc123

Banned
Not particularly high, it was navalised GR3 from the engine intakes back. But it was an entirely new front fuselage and the Blue Fox radar had to be developed from the Lynx Sea Spray radar, tens of millions of pounds would be reasonable I'd guess. Added to this would be the 1975 order of 24 Sea Harriers, which considering the inflation of the 70s and the price of 12 million in 1979 I think maybe 9 million each is reasonable. The whole Sea Harrier project up to 1975 might have commited to expending 250 million pounds.

The amount of money expended by the RN in the wake of CVA 01 cancellation to get a seriously inferior capability looks breathtakingly large.


But, I wonder what was the cost of the whole Harrier project, not only Sea Herrier?
Much more than only Sea Harrier, I presume?
 
The first generation Harriers had a drawn out development path with a major diversion through the P1154, which cost 4 years and 25 million pounds before being cancelled. This artificially inflates the Harrier development price, I'd think a GR1 could have been in service in perhaps 1967 without the P1154.
 

Archibald

Banned
Reading the two threads, I'm considering a scenario where
- Great Britain keep Eagle (and only Eagle) until the 90's
- In 1973 France buy Harriers instead of Super Etendards
947138Foch_FAA.jpg


Then,

- The future Invincible (through deck cruiser) is blended with France PH75
- I mean this ship
ph-75-001.jpg


the Harriers can operate from either the big (Eagle, Foch, Clemenceau) and small carriers (Invicibles and PH75)
 
IOTL, the Buccaneer was introduced to counter the threat of the Sverdlov-class cruisers. If NATO believed (perhaps wrongly) there was some Soviet programme of similar significance at the end of the 1960s, would that be a compelling inducement in favour of keeping the RN in the conventional naval aviation game?
 
The Kiev was laid down in 1969, perhaps intelligence gets wind of this or it happens 18 months earlier.

Archibald, the Sea Harrier is a baby compared to the Phantom and Buccaneer, it would be a good compliment these planes as a backup but using them as replacement is a step backwards. In addition the Sea Harrier fleet was tiny even compared to the winding down fleet of the FAA; The FAA handed over to the RAF about 40 Phantoms and 50 Buccaneer between 1970-78, the Sea Harrier order was 24 in 1974 and increased to 34 in 1978.
 
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The Kiev was laid down in 1969, perhaps intelligence gets wind of this or it happens 18 months earlier.

Or perhaps the Russians decide that they could indeed afford carriers and want to take on the US Navy on the open seas, and thus the Project 1153 carriers begin to take shape in the late 1960s. This forces the RN to craft a response, and the CVA-01 design gets dusted off and reworked to counter the new Soviet carriers.
 
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