Buying the stupid variant of the F-35 sure was a very wise decision.
Give the Marines a couple to play with, sure, but ALL of them are the version with reduced fuel capacity and no tail hook? VTOL is cool but not that cool.
The thing to remember is that the UK doesn’t have any CATOBAR capable carriers, so the only F-35 variant they can fly from their carriers is the VTOL capable one.
I actually didn’t know that, figured we’d be sharing the electromagnetic one from the Gerald Ford. Certainly wasn’t helped by retiring the Harrier early but seems a wiser strategic move to build a better carrier than keep buying nerfed jets
You would think, right? They actually originally planned to include CATOBAR capabilities in their new build carriers, but budget cuts due to the cost of it forced them to scrap the idea, and then the rest of the purchase decisions followed as a result.
I believe they can still be retrofitted, right?
Obviously that would mean extensive time in dock.
I suppose you could but it would be both incredibly time consuming and incredibly expensive, and you’d be more likely to end up with a worse carrier than if you’d just built in those launch capabilities in the first place.
You’d need to rip out the deck, and then retrofit it and the internals to accommodate the rail and launch system. You’d also need to reinforce the deck and remove the ski jump as the jets you’re flying will now be heavier and the jump will just get in the way of the launch system. The system itself could either be electromagnetic (like the EMALS system) but that would require several times the current energy output of a Queen Elizabeth class carrier, so would involve extensive engine upgrades. You could use steam instead, but you have a similar problem in that a whole bunch of infrastructure that you didn’t design space for now has to fit. You’d also probably have to overhaul the fueling, munitions, and maintenance facilities to accommodate the new jets. I’m sure there are other things that would have to be adapted but this is just from the top of my head.
All told, you’d probably be spending a similar amount or more to building a new carrier in order to take one of your own carriers offline for years and at the end of it you’d be left with an incredibly expensive carrier which would likely still be subpar to something custom built for this purpose.
TLDR: You could, but it’d involve a lot of work, a lot of money, a lot of trade offs, and would be unlikely to yield something better than if you’d just put that money into building a new carrier.
What I meant was I thought I’d read that because the design originally had those elements in place, the QE class carriers had left the design characteristics in place to support the launch systems, in particular the structural load bearing aspects.
Not that they’d need a ground up refit.
Certainly the navy is looking a the possibility of doing this.
https://www.twz.com/royal-navy-wants-to-refit-its-carriers-with-catapults-arresting-wires
Nope, cope slope it is.
They do look like Really Sweet Ramps™ though. You could probably clear 25-30 garbage cans if you used Jimmy’s Diamondback.
The whole idea of the F-35B is dumb and has been a huge albatross for the whole program.
The Brits also added an absurd amount of pressure by retiring the Harrier early, leaving the entire Royal Navy with no carrier-capable fixed-wing aircraft until the F-35Bs were delivered
