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Remko,
I would strongly like to point out that above 100 aircraft in a naval airwing you hit rapidly diminishing returns, and if you use an aircraft the size of the FB-111 (which is the same rough size (within a few feet infact - the differences came up when the current F-111 family drawings were done) of the F-111B, and thus a carrier in the 150 to 200 thousand ton range would be about as big as you could go before hitting that wall of diminishing returns. You also propose having armor, which I remind you is parasitic mass, that is only going to make handling the ship harder in a wide variety of conditions. The reason that you don't see ships of today with levels of armor above splinter protection is that the rule of thumb for a shaped charge is that the charge and punch through roughly six times the warhead diameter. The larger Russian missiles could thus feasibly go through 12+ feet of armor.

When drawing up AUs I would also ask you to please not take Sci-Fi designs (such as you have from Avatar, and various Anime), and try to apply them in the real world. For Avatar at least the large gunship, is infeasible with modern, or projected material science and powerplants (the smaller ducted fan VTOLs would be fine)

I know that I myself have joked about a B-70 carrier, and Miho drew the flight deck for a B-1B carrier, but those were both jokes.

I would also like to know what the well defined mission set is for these large ships, because you really have not articulated a well defined strategic roll for the craft, which is something you need to do to define the ships better. The role of a large carrier is power projection far afield, but from the set of nations that make up this NEU† I don't see any interests that they have that would dictate such power projection (The USA is a mercantile nation, and thus has a vested interest in keeping the Sea Lanes of Control open, as the USA needs that to keep its economy going). The next issue that comes up is what exactly can these ships do that several smaller ships couldn't do in a more flexible manner. A supership is all well and good until you are trying to turn to fast and tear yourself in two, and thereby sink your entire fleet-equivalent all at once,

† I'll also ask you to review your political history, and ask yourself "After the EU falls, what is the incentive to join another union of nations that will probably have the exact same problems several decades from now?"

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Also, when exactly did Denmark get kicked out of Scandinavia and Finland invited in?
Finland, along with Iceland and the Faroe Islands, is part of what is called Greater Scandinavia or the North.

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I suppose that is true if one ignores the possibility of Freedom Ship being nothing more but an investment scam. Oh, and BTW, Freedom Ship is nothing more but an investment scam. They don't have any true credible engineers attached to the project, they don't have any credible maritime personnel attached to the project - the only people involved are a handful of financial experts whose particular area of expertise is in scamming morons with money. Lately they've been scaling their plans back more and more as fewer people are bothering to bite.

I would include belgium to you AU. The european union officially originated from the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg, whom started a first trade agreement in 1948. There is no way the Netherlands would be involved and the Belgians didn't. Also Poland would be a good candidate, since they have tried their best to become 'european' over the last decade.

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ugh that c-21 is one ugly bastard. for the lift fan sylphid: that makes no sense. you will need to strengthen the airframe, remodel the tail, lengthen the nose, etc etc..... so to say, it is easier to make an harrier stealth then making that thing VTOL (and you don't need it, because you want huge ships were even an VSTOL has plenty of room to start and land)

and for the cvx: that's ok, but know it is an ugly bastard which I am happy about it has never been build (I only draw it to give it it's place in the bucket, and for more experience, not because I like how it looks)

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Well, back to the drawing board then...

I see now that I haven't looked into it enough, and need to learn a lot more about Naval ships.

I might keep the V/STOL Sylphid, but I have a back up idea for it. The Hawker (Bae) P.1214-3 'X-wing' Harrier follow up: http://x-plane.org/hawkers/P1214-3.html

I'm considering modifying it a bit so it will have more stealth features (mostly exterior, no internal stores) based on the F-35 JSF.

I knew the Dragon would probably not work. According to 'The making of Avatar' books, the smaller 'Scorpion' attack craft needed to be as realistic as possible, for the Dragon the designers were given a free hand in design with only basic rules. So until I figure out how to get this baby of te ground it's shelved. I don't like the Scorpions though, and have already found a very cool stealthy attack helicopter design which would do just fine.

One of the reasons I made the MPF-ship so large was multiple runways/spots. Instead of a single line of spots, the ship would feature three helo-spot lanes side by side, but, again, I do not know the problems associated with turbulence and vortices on the flight deck.

As for the history of the NEU (and it's power projection accross the globe), well, like I said, I haven't worked it out completely. The basic idea stays (and I will include Belgium), but the details need to be worked out. I guess I'd better get a book or something about the EU.

there is one problem with al pegasus engined designs: the huge fan on the front. that is why the harrier can't go supersonic (allong with the fact it is missing afterburners) and it makes all designs with it rather unstealthy from any angle of which it is visible. that means you have to hide it from radar, and that means again an large overhaul. another idea if you want an VTOL: yak 43.
http://www.aviation.ru/Yak/Yak-43.jpg
http://www.afwing.com/intro/birdy/yak43f35.jpg
http://i38.tinypic.com/33x7oxx.jpg
not real, not stealthy (only reduced RCS) but an good fighter with VTOL capabilities (somewhat similar to an russian F-35B)

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Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
I ask of you to prove me wrong. Not say I am wrong, but prove it, because then I will have learned something new.
Shipbucket Wiki admin

It doesn't matter how stealthy your airframe is, if you hang bombs and missiles off of it you are going to have a good sized RCS, unless when you say "stealth features" you are thinking along the lines of the Super Hornet or the Rafale, and not a 5th gen fighter (F-22, PAK-FA, J-14, ect).

If you really want a STOVL fighter, and you don't want F-35s, then the next best option would probably be a westernized Yak-43 as Ace recommended.

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Yes, that would have been my next problem. Although (according to Bae/Hawker) their X-wing design would have been supersonic, but at what fuel rate...
If I'm not misstaken, Yakolev made another design for a STOVL fighter, similar to the Lockheed Martin JSF (they actually worked together, so LM could get their hands on STOVL technology from what I understood). It's smaller than the Yak-45, but was never developed beyond a concept, I think the design was in a special about X-planes from Air Forces Monthly a few years back.
Good point. I guess 'low-observable' (like the Super Hornet / Rafale / Gripen NG) would be better. Besides, if you're putting an amphibious landing ship in front of coast line (even if OTH) they know you're coming anyway...

I have made some modifications to the Sylphid, a larger wingspan (15,66 meters compared to the original 13,77 meters) as well as a larger wing surface area. I plan to do a proper drawing (pencil + graphpaper, don't shoot me, I can't draw with computers yet...) and further modifications will include lenghtening the rear fuselage (almost until the end of the engine nacells), different engine nozzles (the original ones look cool, but would be terrible for rotation in a STOVL aircraft), and of course the liftfan behind the cockpit. As the Sylph is already a much larger plane than the F-35 Lightning II that shouldn't be a big problem. I will have to add folding wing(tip)s because of the increased wingspan, but, if folded vertical tailplanes are also included, that would be no problem as well.

I do have a fifth generation (5.5 perhaps?) fighter idea for the carrier though, it's similar to the F-22 Raptor, but mixed with Sukhoi elements, and I assume the original design is Russian (probably a home made original design, instead of an official Sukhoi or Mikoyan design). I've found it on the web and call it the Saab JAS-45 "Draken II" (yes, very original, I know). I haven't gotten any specifications, but it's a big aircaft, larger than a Su-34 Flanker... If anyone knows more about it, please let me know!



I've also scaled back my "Dual-Tram" LHA design. It's still larger than a Ford class CVN at 358,2 meters with a 82,8 meter wide flightdeck, but no longer in the 500 meter range. Displacement would be somewhere in the 90,000 - 120,000 ton range (the original Dual-Tram would have been around 69,000 tons). I've kept it a little larger because of the larger aircraft, and the need to 'spot' the Karem OST. This size should be realistically enough. Especially with a little cheating. In my AU advances in metallurgy were discovered that made building larger ships easier. I still have to scale back the CVN and the MPF ship though.
Well, besides regional conflicts, Nature... As we have seen in the last couple of years, due to the changes of the Global climate (for whatever reasons this may be happening) natural disasters (such as hurricanes) happen more often. A large ship capable of carrying a lot of helicopters, as well as Tiltrotor craft the size of a C-130 would be very usefull in providing disaster-relief.

For the landing craft I have chosen the LCU(R) planing design from Bell-Textron Marine Systems. Besides looking cooler than the ugly LCAC, it has a greater payload (three MBT's instead of one) and a longer range. My LHA design is capable of four at a time (they are longer than an LCAC) in her large well deck (108 meters x 37,8 meters).

Just a couple of links to add in the visual aspect:

- Yukikaze FFR-31 Sylph: http://www.gearsonline.net/series/yukikaze/sylph/
- Karem Optimum Speed Tiltrotor: http://karemaircraft.com/index-1.html
- Bell-Textron LCU(R) Planing Landing Craft: http://web.archive.org/web/200611100941 ... asheet.pdf
- Sikorsky X2-JHL concept: http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/fligh ... X2_JHL.gif
- Dual-Tram line LHA design (which unfortunately lost to the improved Wasp-class): http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... m-line.gif

The specs of the ship (based on the line-art from a PDF) are as follows:

Length:
-Over all 282 meters (925 ft);
-Flightdeck: 274.8 meters (901.6 ft);
-Waterline: 265.2 meters (870 ft)
Beam: 66.6 meters (218.5 ft) flightdeck / 72 meters (236.2 ft) over aircraft elevators.
Draught: appr. 9.6 meters (31.5 ft)

JSF Runway length: appr. 140 meters (459.3 ft)
Dockingwell length: 92.4 meters (303 ft)
Hangar length: 92.4 meters (303 ft)
Hangar height: 7.2 meters (23.6 ft)
Hangar width: 36 meters (118 ft)
Elevator size: 14.4 meters x 15.6 meters (47.3 ft x 51.2 ft)

your ship is not suitable for any other then VTOL aircraft! there is no traditional landing runway!
for the tasks you have in mind I think it is better to build 2 ships of half the size then this behemoth.
also: as said, the sylph isn't suitable for VTOL. look at all VTOL craft with rotating nozzles: they have large structures around the engines to reinforce that area. the sylph has NONE of that. making it larger isn't that good: it is already larger then most aircraft. on an aircraft carrier size matters.

for that '5.5 gen fighter' : it is called the chengdu PHOTOSHOP. they mixed in: yf-23, af/x, f-22, mig 1.44, JSF and some chinese designs. and I really worry about it's flyability.

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Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
I ask of you to prove me wrong. Not say I am wrong, but prove it, because then I will have learned something new.
Shipbucket Wiki admin