Aircraft Carriers II (Closed to posting)

Intresting thought Obi Wan. Perhaps in the case of India they did not want to appear to "close" to England or France. Simply because of their Asian neighbors.

If the UK was willing maybe they could have purchased the Invincible as a stop gap. I may have mentioned this previously. A real stretch would be buying an retired USN Tarawa class and re-fitting the ship with a ski-jump & COAG as you once posted here.

Politics is always the most diffcult dimension of any project to get right. I think Invincible may yet make the journey to Mumbai, if Viraat develops a major mechanical fault before Vikramaditya is ready. Much has been made previously of the lack of carrier building experience of the Russians (all their previous vessels having been built in the Ukraine), but The Indian carrier is the best school they could hope for, especially as someone else is footing the bill! A Tarawa would be a major political move for both the US and India, and to operate the Mig 29Ks would require a rebuild at least as extensive as the Russian ship. The cheapest option would be to buy either second hand Harriers off the US (the airframes are all getting a bit long in the tooth now, limited flying time left post transfer, a stop gap solution at best), or to buy into the F-35 program, again a ajor political move. I think Vikramaditya will be dragged into service in 2012 at the latest whether she is truly ready or not and will have to hold the line until the new Vikrant is ready before she can go back to a shipyard to be rectified. I think India is paying the price of prevarication over the original Gorshkov deal, if they had gone ahead earlier the ship could be in service now...

Obi Wan sent me a link to some excellent videos on RN CVs..



The first video is from 1960..I was 7 years old and some of your parents were not born yet..

I really like this ship. I give the Italians an A-. Over all an excellent design. I'd give them an A if they had not placed the aircraft elevator in the middle of the deck & those VLS celss so level with the flight deck.... Like I've mentioned before the elevator eats up to much deck space and hangar space. Also the VLS cells intfere with flight operations.. On the plus side the hangar looks to be vey large and can accomdate a somewhat larger air wing than the Italians would probaly admit.

bd popeye said:

I really like this ship. I give the Italians an A-. Over all an excellent design. I'd give them an A if they had not placed the aircraft elevator in the middle of the deck & those VLS celss so level with the flight deck.... Like I've mentioned before the elevator eats up to much deck space and hangar space. Also the VLS cells intfere with flight operations.. On the plus side the hangar looks to be vey large and can accomdate a somewhat larger air wing than the Italians would probaly admit.

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popeye i can't see these nice pictures ive got a photo bucket bandwidth exceeded

Sorry gents..Those pictures are gone. If I find them again I will re-post!

I won't be copying and pasting those photos any longer..I should know better!!

Obi Wan I found this pic in another forum with no real caption. Do you have any deatils?/ Thanks??

F-35 mockup on HMS Illustrious??

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bd popeye said:

I won't be copying and pasting those photos any longer..I should know better!!

Obi Wan I found this pic in another forum with no real caption. Do you have any deatils?/ Thanks??

[qimg]http://i37.tinypic.com/szzof6.jpg[/qimg]

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This is Illustrious on a recent visit to London with the O2 Dome (formerly the Millenium Dome) behind. The F-35B on deck is the same mock up I saw up close and personal at Meet Your Navy Days back in the summer. Might be cheaper to get a whole sqn of these to park on deck since the RAF won't let any Harriers go near the deck these days.

Might be cheaper to get a whole sqn of these to park on deck since the RAF won't let any Harriers go near the deck these days.

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I never understood why the RAF took over operation of the Harriers

Maybe the USMC shold regulary deploy on Lusty like they did for short stint in 2007. Would the MOD and US DoD allow it? And could they afford such a deployment?

USMC Sea Harriers in action on the Royal Navys HMS Illustrious in July 2007

The future USN USS America LHA-6 with a ski ramp as added by Obi Wan Russell.