What I meant was I thought I’d read that because the design originally had those elements in place, the QE class carriers had left the design characteristics in place to support the launch systems, in particular the structural load bearing aspects.
Not that they’d need a ground up refit.
Certainly the navy is looking a the possibility of doing this.
Interesting question! I hadn’t heard about the royal navy looking into this recently! The last I was aware they had discussed retrofitting the QE carriers around 2011-2012, but the project cost estimation at that time was ~£2b, two thirds of the approximate procurement cost of one carrier at ~£3b.
I wasn’t able to find anything definitive about if this more recent proposed retrofit will go forward, but I will say that the UK’s 2025 Strategic Defense Review white paper specifies in section 7.2 they will be using F-35B for their carrier air wings. The full section is as follows:
“The Royal Navy must continue to move towards a more powerful but cheaper and simpler fleet, developing a ‘high-low’ mix of equipment and weapons that exploits autonomy and digital integration. Carrier strike is already at the cutting-edge of NATO capability but much more rapid progress is needed in its evolution into ‘hybrid’ carrier airwings, whereby crewed combat aircraft (F-35B) are complemented by autonomous collaborative platforms in the air, and expendable, single-use drones. Plans for the hybrid carrier airwings should also include long-range precision missiles capable of being fired from the carrier deck.”
My guess is that they found similar results to the previous time they looked into retrofitting the carriers. The language here makes me think they’re moving toward more drone integration (manned-unmanned teaming is all the rage right now) in order to offload extra munitions and capabilities to autonomous platforms which compliment and counterbalance the weight limitation weaknesses of F-35B rather than broadening the scope of their available air wing, but it’s hard to say as I didn’t see any mention for or against the retrofits in that whitepaper. Definitely something to keep an eye on, though, as I doubt they would have reconsidered the retrofits in the first place without some reason to make it potentially more viable. Good looking out!
What I meant was I thought I’d read that because the design originally had those elements in place, the QE class carriers had left the design characteristics in place to support the launch systems, in particular the structural load bearing aspects.
Not that they’d need a ground up refit.
Certainly the navy is looking a the possibility of doing this.
https://www.navalnews.com/event-news/cne-2023/2023/06/uk-project-ark-royal-catapult-aircraft-carriers/
https://www.twz.com/royal-navy-wants-to-refit-its-carriers-with-catapults-arresting-wires
Interesting question! I hadn’t heard about the royal navy looking into this recently! The last I was aware they had discussed retrofitting the QE carriers around 2011-2012, but the project cost estimation at that time was ~£2b, two thirds of the approximate procurement cost of one carrier at ~£3b.
I wasn’t able to find anything definitive about if this more recent proposed retrofit will go forward, but I will say that the UK’s 2025 Strategic Defense Review white paper specifies in section 7.2 they will be using F-35B for their carrier air wings. The full section is as follows:
“The Royal Navy must continue to move towards a more powerful but cheaper and simpler fleet, developing a ‘high-low’ mix of equipment and weapons that exploits autonomy and digital integration. Carrier strike is already at the cutting-edge of NATO capability but much more rapid progress is needed in its evolution into ‘hybrid’ carrier airwings, whereby crewed combat aircraft (F-35B) are complemented by autonomous collaborative platforms in the air, and expendable, single-use drones. Plans for the hybrid carrier airwings should also include long-range precision missiles capable of being fired from the carrier deck.”
My guess is that they found similar results to the previous time they looked into retrofitting the carriers. The language here makes me think they’re moving toward more drone integration (manned-unmanned teaming is all the rage right now) in order to offload extra munitions and capabilities to autonomous platforms which compliment and counterbalance the weight limitation weaknesses of F-35B rather than broadening the scope of their available air wing, but it’s hard to say as I didn’t see any mention for or against the retrofits in that whitepaper. Definitely something to keep an eye on, though, as I doubt they would have reconsidered the retrofits in the first place without some reason to make it potentially more viable. Good looking out!