CVA-01

The 'CVA-01' ''Queen Elizabeth'' class aircraft carrier was designed to replace the World War II vintage aircraft carriers of the Royal Navy in the 1960s. Displacing over 50,000 tons and with capacity for up to 50 modern aircraft, they would have allowed the Royal Navy to maintain its significant position in carrier aviation. But the project was cancelled, along with the proposed Type 82 destroyers that would have escorted them, in the 1966 Defence White Paper, due to interservice rivalries, the huge cost of the proposed carriers, and the difficulties they would have presented in construction, operation, and maintenance. Had these ships been built, it is likely they would have been named HMS ''Queen Elizabeth'' and HMS ''Duke of Edinburgh''.
In 1963, the then Minister of Defence Peter Thorneycroft, announced in Parliament that one new aircraft carrier would be built, at an estimated cost of £56 million. However, a change of government and competition from the RAF - the RAF and Navy were expected to use the same aircraft initially; the Hawker P.1154 supersonic V/STOL aircraft (a larger version of the Hawker Siddeley Harrier) - contributed to cancellation. Instead HMS ''Ark Royal'' was approved for modernization and the RAF would get the F-111 to replace the TSR-2, which was cancelled in 1965.
The Royal Navy did not completely surrender aircraft carrier capability. The first of the ''Invincible'' class carriers were ordered in 1973. Carefully named "through-deck command cruisers" (TDCC) to avoid the stigma of great expense attached to full-size aircraft carriers, these 20,000 tons ships had significantly less fixed-wing aviation capability than the planned CVA-01 carriers. However, they were to function as part of combined NATO fleets, with a primary mission of providing Cold War anti-submarine patrols in the north-east Atlantic, in support of the American carrier battle groups. They could still carry specialised fixed-wing aircraft in the form of the V/STOL Sea Harrier jets, which allowed the Royal Navy to deploy aircraft in the Falklands War.
The large bulbous radar dome above the central island on the carrier was planned to be a Type 988 Anglo-Dutch 'Broomstick' 3D radar, which would subsequently fitted on the Royal Netherlands Navy ''Tromp'' class frigates
The United Kingdom has recently returned to the fleet carrier idea, with the construction of a new generation of aircraft carriers larger than the cancelled CVA-01s. It is interesting to note that the two new carriers are to be named ''HMS Queen Elizabeth'' and ''HMS Prince of Wales''. The contract for these vessels was announced on 25 July 2007 by the Secretary of State for Defence Des Browne, ending several years of delay over cost issues and British naval shipbuilding restructuring.^[1][2]

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External links

References

1.
2. Go-ahead for £4bn aircraft carriers Michael Evans

External links

★ A comprehensive essay on the history of the CVA-01 design and related issues

★ Island Stance