CVA-01

The stbd-aft Phalanx feels awfully low. I'd try to move it up a deck level to prevent sea damage.

Just wanted to add my appreciation for the excellent drawings, even though they bring a tear to the eye

I agree with what was said earlier about how the design had become compromised by cancellation, in retrospect CVA-01 probably shouldn't have had Sea Dart and just had a full length flight deck and omitted the boat deck on the side for extra flight deck space. I've seen some alternate versions of CVA-01 that have this configuration as well as omitting the Alaska Highway, the jury does still seem to be out on that still after nearly 50 years!

As to its airgroup, I do agree that by 1990 the FAA's fast jet force would likely be all Hornets, an advantage of this would be that the RN could contract the aircrew training to the USN and save costs. It's not impossible that an Anglo-French joint project to develop a new naval aircraft could have started in the early 1980's, such as the original Eurofighter concept and that the Hornets would simply have been an interim solution until this new aircraft was ready and may have simply been leased from the Americans, I think i read somewhere once that this was what the Aeronavale wanted to do until the Rafale came along but the French Government refused.

EDIT Forgot to say, I really like the drawings of the P.139B, how many crew would the AEW version have had, 4 or 5?

Both drawings are awesome!! Well done, indeed.

As promised, with the new materials available I have completely redrawn CVA-01 from scratch.

[ img ]

Drawing Note:
I feel I must apologise for the poor touching up efforts I made at the start of this thread! In my defence I call on two things; first it was five years ago and we've all come a long way since then. Second, the only reliable line drawings we had were two pretty scrappy side-views from Friedman's 'British Carrier Aviation' and Roger Chesneau's 'Aircraft Carriers of the World' and Bombhead found a port-view in a Leo Marriot book. All were actually quite erroneous and reflected a slightly earlier design. Actually, one of Friedman's own rough layout sketches in British Carrier Aviation' showed the final design but we just didn't realise it at the time.

My primary sources have been John Jordan's excellent plans in Ian Sturton's article in 'Warship 2014' and the official artists impression paintings. Alongside Jordan's drawings the artist's impressions actually make more sense and they are remarkably accurate in some details, less so in others. Note that the artist's impression is also of an earlier design. Jordan's plans are of the Final Design of November 1965. One of the notable differences of the final design are the straight funnels rather than the angled ones so often shown in other sources. Probably some further detail changes would have been made had construction begun but here I think we have the closest of what they would have looked like.

Jordan's drawings still had some ambiguous elements and the port side of the island was missing so I've had to join the dots in some areas. I think 95% of the details are correct, including aerials, panel lines and most of the hull cut-out details etc. Deck markings are based on those from Ark Royal. I'm also quite chuffed that this is the first ever three-view of a real ship that I've done solo.

The Sea Dart launcher for CVA-01 was to be a different model to either of those fitted to Type 82 and 42. No detailed drawings have ever been unearthed so I've done a best guess here based on the two launchers and the artists impressions. Features of note include the RAS stations along the island and a fuel RAS station forward just under the starboard sponson. Also noteworthy are the four deck-edge ammunition lifts to the Alaskan Highway and the two refuelling stations located there.
The airwing is as planned in service, the Phantoms are of 899 Sqn which in reality never operated the type but could easily have been one of the Sea Vixen squadrons to convert.

Hopefully I will be able to soon add the interesting original S.C.C. Project 35 design of March 1963. I might throw a couple of what-if aircraft into the mix too!

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Hood's Worklist
English Electric Canberra FD
Interwar RN Capital Ships
Super-Darings
Never-Were British Aircraft

Words fail me. I do hope we see the Granby-era last hurrah down the line too to round the set off again.

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AU Projects: | Banbha et al. | New England: The Divided States
Blood and Fire

really solid work, and nice to see it in the bucket finaly on the right form.

An amazing work indeed Hood, a verny nice looking carrier she would have been.

But pardon me the inboard propeller shafts seems to be messing.

Arrgh! I spent hours looking at this for errors! Thanks BB1987, proof that another pair of eyes is always a good thing.
I've corrected the inboard shaft and hopefully an F5 refresh should do the trick.

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Hood's Worklist
English Electric Canberra FD
Interwar RN Capital Ships
Super-Darings
Never-Were British Aircraft

Excellent work Hood,

Comparing the pre-war designed Illustrious then Victorious upgrade, ArkRoyal/Eagle, to the beasty you have drawn above does show the lineage that each type passed on. Something that has always been good is that the RN kept to its own designs and requirements rather than using clones off the US designs of the time. All those ships mentioned above look 'British'.

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