Where to begin indeed. Wind over deck. Cotrary to popular belief this does not have to be on the exact axis of the landing runway or aligned with the cats perfectly. Wind itself doesn't flow in perfect straight linesand variations of 10 degrees or more in wind direction are quite common from minute to minute. CTOL carriers steaming 'into wind' are doing just that. The wind is flowing staright down the deck as near as possible. Aircraft landing on a ship with an 8 degree angled deck willl have a sidewind at that angle too. this is what pilots are trained to do on land as well, since runways at airbases cannot normally turn into wind. Remember an angled deck carrier will also be moving to the right of an aircraft on approach, pilots compensate for this quite easily.
Jeff's design has to be considered in context, it isn't about putting a new generation of carriers into frontline peacetime service, it's more a spiritual decendant of the WW2 escort carrier conversions or MAC ships. Far from ideal but very functional and useful in time of war. They cruise at about 20 knots in peacetime but in war they will be a lot lighter, even after conversion. They won't be hauling massive weight loads (cargo containers) around so speed will increase. That's just basic physics. You don't need to speed like a hydrofoil to launch aircraft, if their is enough WOD then 25 knots is more than enough. British CTOL carriers in the 60s and 70s often criticised for small size and low speed could launch American types like the Phantom, Corsair and Intruder at about 25 knots without difficulty. Ark Royal, the only fully Phantom capable carrier could only make 29 knots in her later years (down from a designed speed of 31 knots) and this didn't cause any problems.
The USS United States was cancelled in favour of USAF B-36 Bombers. USS Forrestal came along a while later because of experience in the Korean War demonstrated carriers were still necessary. The original design of the Forestal was basically the same as the United States, with less emphasis on operating large nuclear bombers in favour of conventional strike aircraft. It was modified whilst under construction to incorporate British inventions such as the Angled deck, Steam catapults and the mirror landing sight. Only when these were incorporated could an Island be introduced to what had previously been a flush decked design.
The Centreline elevator was dropped decades ago. Except it wasn't. Unless you are American. Around the world carriers are still coming off the slipways today with centreline elevators. The ships we are debating here, are most definitley not to be built in American yards so imposing American rules on the design isn't possible. These ships are conversions, not purpose built, so there will be compromises such as centreline elevators in order to make the ships work. Try comparing them with other converted vessels such as RFA Argus rather than purpose built vessels like the Nimitz class.
Turbulence from the superstructure will be trailing the ship directly aft whereas the aircraft in the landing circuit will be approaching off axis at an angle, thus should not encounter any serious problems. If the weapons mounted forward are in VLS silos and mounted lower than flight deck level then there shouldn't be any seroious problems there either. The Invincible class had a large Missile launcher with a large blast deflector mounted forward and didn't have any turbulence problems as a result.
