CVA-01
Encyclopedia
The CVA-01 aircraft carrier
was to be a class of at least two fleet carriers that would have replaced the Royal Navy's
existing aircraft carriers, most of which had been designed prior to or during World War II
.
The project was cancelled, along with the proposed Type 82 destroyer
s that would have escorted them, in the 1966 Defence White Paper
, due to inter-service 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
or the Invincible class.
. The fleet included the fleet carriers HMS Ark Royal
, Eagle
, the rebuilt Victorious
, and the rebuilt light carriers Hermes
and Centaur
. However, many of these ships were not large enough to handle significant numbers of modern jet fighter
s. HMS Ark Royal, the largest of the carriers at the time, could only accommodate 48 aircraft, which compared poorly to the 90 available to a Kitty Hawk class ship. The increasing weight and size of modern jet fighters meant that a larger deck area was required for take offs and landings. Although the British had come up with increasingly innovative ways to allow ever larger aircraft to operate from the small flight decks of their carriers, to maintain air groups of a size large enough the Royal Navy decided that it would be necessary to commission a new class of large fleet carriers.
, had space for four full sized steam catapults, but was rejected early on as being significantly too costly, particularly in terms of the dockyard upgrades that would be needed to service them. However, the advantages of size were immediately apparent. A 42,000 ton carrier could only hold 27 aircraft, whereas a 55,000 ton carrier could carry 49. This represented an 80% increase in the size of the airgroup for a 30% increase in displacement
. Even with these smaller designs, however, cost was already becoming a serious issue. The Treasury and the Air Ministry
were pushing for a new set of long-range strike aircraft
operating from a string of bases around the globe. For the former this appeared a cost effective solution for the East of Suez
issue, and for the latter it meant that the Royal Navy would not get a majority of the defence budget. This meant that by July 1963 it was announced that only one carrier would be built.
The CVA-01 would have displaced 54,500 tons (although the ship was said to displace 53,000 tons "in average action condition"), with a flight deck length (including the bridle arrester boom) of 963 in 3 in (293.6 m) The size of the flight deck, combined with steam catapults and arrester gear would have enabled the carriers to operate the latest jets. The aircraft complement would have included 36 Phantom
fighter/ground-attack aircraft and/or Buccaneer
low-level strike aircraft, four early-warning aircraft, five anti-submarine helicopters and two search-and-rescue helicopters. The large 'Broomstick' radar dome above the central island on the carrier was planned to be a Type 988 Anglo-Dutch 3D radar, which would subsequently be fitted on the Royal Netherlands Navy
Tromp-class frigates, although this would not have been fitted to the final carrier as Britain pulled out of the project.
Peter Thorneycroft
announced in Parliament
that one new aircraft carrier would be built, at an estimated cost of £56 million, although the Treasury thought that the final cost was likely to be nearer £100 million. This was based on the carrier using the same aircraft as the Royal Air Force
, the Hawker P.1154 supersonic V/STOL aircraft (a larger version of what would become the Hawker Siddeley Harrier). However, after the General Election of October 1964
, the new Labour Government wanted to cut back defence spending, and the RAF attacked the Royal Navy's carrier in an attempt to safeguard first its BAC TSR-2
strike/reconnaissance aircraft and then its proposed replacement, the General Dynamics F-111
, from the cuts. The new Government, and by extension Treasury, were particularly concerned about the size issues involved, as these were fluctuating quite frequently. They therefore demanded that the Admiralty keep to 53,000 tons. With the navy unwilling to alter the size of the carrier and its airgroup accordingly the difficulties spiralled, and the final tonnage was much more likely to be nearer 55,000 tons. The design issues also increased, including dramatically reduced top speed, deck space, armour and radar equipment. When the Cabinet met in February 1966, the new Secretary of State for Defence
, Denis Healey
, strongly supported the RAF and their plan for long-range strike aircraft, by now the F-111, largely due to the costing issues of running fleet carriers. This meeting resulted in the 1966 Defence White Paper
. In this paper the CVA-01 was finally cancelled, along with the remainder of the Type 82 destroyer
s that would have been built as escorts, of which only HMS Bristol
was eventually completed. Instead plans were made for the modernisation of Eagle
and Ark Royal
.
and Ark Royal
to enable them to operate the aircraft that were intended for the cancelled ships. However, following Ark Royals three year refit from 1967 to 1970, the decision was then taken not to proceed with a similar rebuild of Eagle, with that ship instead decommissioned in 1972. The Royal Navy did not however completely surrender aircraft carrier capability, despite the eventual withdrawal of Ark Royal in 1978. The concept of the "through-deck command cruiser"
was first raised in the late 1960s, when it became clear that there was a good chance of the Fleet Air Arm losing fixed-wing capability. The "through-deck cruiser" name was chosen to avoid the stigma of great expense attached to full-size aircraft carriers, with these 20,000 ton ships having 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 Ocean
, in support of the American carrier battle group
s. In order to ensure the safety of the battle group around the "cruiser", the facility to carry the Sea Harrier
was added at a late stage of development, the intention being that it could give the battle group the capability to intercept maurauding Soviet aircraft without having to rely either on land based or US Navy interceptors. The ultimate result of this was the Royal Navy being able to deploy carrier-based aircraft during the Falklands War
.
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. 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.
Aircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...
was to be a class of at least two fleet carriers that would have replaced the Royal Navy's
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
existing aircraft carriers, most of which had been designed prior to or during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
The project was cancelled, along with the proposed Type 82 destroyer
Type 82 destroyer
The Type 82 or Bristol-class destroyer was to be a class of four Royal Navy warships intended as area air-defence destroyers to replace the County-class destroyers, and to serve as escorts to the planned CVA-01 aircraft carriers...
s that would have escorted them, in the 1966 Defence White Paper
1966 Defence White Paper
The 1966 Defence White Paper was a major review of the United Kingdom's defence policy brought about by the Labour Party government under the Prime Minister Harold Wilson. The main author was the then Secretary of State for Defence, Denis Healey...
, due to inter-service 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
or the Invincible class.
Origin
In the 1960s the Royal Navy was still one of the premier carrier fleets in the world, second only to the US Navy which was in the process of building the 80,000 ton Kitty Hawk-class aircraft carriersKitty Hawk class aircraft carrier
The Kitty Hawk-class supercarriers of the United States Navy were an incremental improvement on the Forrestal-class vessels. Four were built, all in the 1960s, , , and...
. The fleet included the fleet carriers HMS Ark Royal
HMS Ark Royal (R09)
HMS Ark Royal was an Audacious-class aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy and, when she was decommissioned in 1978, was the Royal Navy's last remaining conventional catapult and arrested-landing aircraft carrier...
, Eagle
HMS Eagle (R05)
HMS Eagle was an aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy, in service 1951-1972. With her sister ship , she is one of the two largest British aircraft carriers yet built....
, the rebuilt Victorious
HMS Victorious (R38)
HMS Victorious was the second Illustrious-class aircraft carrier ordered under the 1936 Naval Programme. She was laid down at the Vickers-Armstrong shipyard at Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in 1937 and launched two years later in 1939...
, and the rebuilt light carriers Hermes
HMS Hermes (R12)
HMS Hermes was a Centaur-class British aircraft carrier, the last of the postwar conventional aircraft carriers commissioned into the Royal Navy.-Construction and modifications:...
and Centaur
HMS Centaur (R06)
HMS Centaur was the first of the four Centaur-class light fleet carriers of the Royal Navy. She was the only ship of her class to retain the original configuration with a straight axial flight deck rather than the angled flight decks of her three sister ships...
. However, many of these ships were not large enough to handle significant numbers of modern jet fighter
Fighter aircraft
A fighter aircraft is a military aircraft designed primarily for air-to-air combat with other aircraft, as opposed to a bomber, which is designed primarily to attack ground targets...
s. HMS Ark Royal, the largest of the carriers at the time, could only accommodate 48 aircraft, which compared poorly to the 90 available to a Kitty Hawk class ship. The increasing weight and size of modern jet fighters meant that a larger deck area was required for take offs and landings. Although the British had come up with increasingly innovative ways to allow ever larger aircraft to operate from the small flight decks of their carriers, to maintain air groups of a size large enough the Royal Navy decided that it would be necessary to commission a new class of large fleet carriers.
Design considerations
Once the Chiefs of Staff had given their approval to the idea of new carriers being necessary, in January 1962, in the strategic paper COS(621)1, British Strategy in the Sixties, the Admiralty Board had to sift through six possible designs. These ranged from 42,000 to 68,000 tons at full load. The largest design, based on the USS Forrestal classForrestal class aircraft carrier
The Forrestal-class aircraft carriers were a four-ship class designed and built for the United States Navy in the 1950s. It was the first class of so-called supercarriers, combining high tonnage, deck-edge elevators and an angled deck...
, had space for four full sized steam catapults, but was rejected early on as being significantly too costly, particularly in terms of the dockyard upgrades that would be needed to service them. However, the advantages of size were immediately apparent. A 42,000 ton carrier could only hold 27 aircraft, whereas a 55,000 ton carrier could carry 49. This represented an 80% increase in the size of the airgroup for a 30% increase in displacement
Displacement (ship)
A ship's displacement is its weight at any given time, generally expressed in metric tons or long tons. The term is often used to mean the ship's weight when it is loaded to its maximum capacity. A number of synonymous terms exist for this maximum weight, such as loaded displacement, full load...
. Even with these smaller designs, however, cost was already becoming a serious issue. The Treasury and the Air Ministry
Air Ministry
The Air Ministry was a department of the British Government with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964...
were pushing for a new set of long-range strike aircraft
BAC TSR-2
The British Aircraft Corporation TSR-2 was a cancelled Cold War strike and reconnaissance aircraft developed by the British Aircraft Corporation for the Royal Air Force in the late 1950s and early 1960s...
operating from a string of bases around the globe. For the former this appeared a cost effective solution for the East of Suez
East of Suez
The phrase East of Suez is used in British military and political discussions in reference to imperial interests beyond the European theatre ....
issue, and for the latter it meant that the Royal Navy would not get a majority of the defence budget. This meant that by July 1963 it was announced that only one carrier would be built.
Design
F-4 Phantom II
The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II is a tandem two-seat, twin-engined, all-weather, long-range supersonic jet interceptor fighter/fighter-bomber originally developed for the United States Navy by McDonnell Aircraft. It first entered service in 1960 with the U.S. Navy. Proving highly adaptable,...
fighter/ground-attack aircraft and/or Buccaneer
Blackburn Buccaneer
The Blackburn Buccaneer was a British low-level subsonic strike aircraft with nuclear weapon delivery capability serving with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force between 1962 and 1994, including service in the 1991 Gulf War...
low-level strike aircraft, four early-warning aircraft, five anti-submarine helicopters and two search-and-rescue helicopters. The large 'Broomstick' radar dome above the central island on the carrier was planned to be a Type 988 Anglo-Dutch 3D radar, which would subsequently be fitted on the Royal Netherlands Navy
Royal Netherlands Navy
The Koninklijke Marine is the navy of the Netherlands. In the mid-17th century the Dutch Navy was the most powerful navy in the world and it played an active role in the wars of the Dutch Republic and later those of the Batavian Republic and the Kingdom of the Netherlands...
Tromp-class frigates, although this would not have been fitted to the final carrier as Britain pulled out of the project.
Cancellation
By Spring 1963 Minister of DefenceMinister of Defence (UK)
The post of Minister of Defence was responsible for co-ordination of defence and security from its creation in 1940 until its abolition in 1964. The post was a Cabinet level post and generally ranked above the three service ministers, some of whom, however, continued to also serve in...
Peter Thorneycroft
Peter Thorneycroft
George Edward Peter Thorneycroft, Baron Thorneycroft CH, PC , was a British Conservative Party politician. He served as Chancellor of the Exchequer between 1957 and 1958.-Biography:...
announced in Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the supreme legislative body in the United Kingdom, British Crown dependencies and British overseas territories, located in London...
that one new aircraft carrier would be built, at an estimated cost of £56 million, although the Treasury thought that the final cost was likely to be nearer £100 million. This was based on the carrier using the same aircraft as the Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
, the Hawker P.1154 supersonic V/STOL aircraft (a larger version of what would become the Hawker Siddeley Harrier). However, after the General Election of October 1964
United Kingdom general election, 1964
The United Kingdom general election of 1964 was held on 15 October 1964, more than five years after the preceding election, and thirteen years after the Conservative Party had retaken power...
, the new Labour Government wanted to cut back defence spending, and the RAF attacked the Royal Navy's carrier in an attempt to safeguard first its BAC TSR-2
BAC TSR-2
The British Aircraft Corporation TSR-2 was a cancelled Cold War strike and reconnaissance aircraft developed by the British Aircraft Corporation for the Royal Air Force in the late 1950s and early 1960s...
strike/reconnaissance aircraft and then its proposed replacement, the General Dynamics F-111
General Dynamics F-111
The General Dynamics F-111 "Aardvark" was a medium-range interdictor and tactical strike aircraft that also filled the roles of strategic bomber, reconnaissance, and electronic warfare in its various versions. Developed in the 1960s by General Dynamics, it first entered service in 1967 with the...
, from the cuts. The new Government, and by extension Treasury, were particularly concerned about the size issues involved, as these were fluctuating quite frequently. They therefore demanded that the Admiralty keep to 53,000 tons. With the navy unwilling to alter the size of the carrier and its airgroup accordingly the difficulties spiralled, and the final tonnage was much more likely to be nearer 55,000 tons. The design issues also increased, including dramatically reduced top speed, deck space, armour and radar equipment. When the Cabinet met in February 1966, the new Secretary of State for Defence
Secretary of State for Defence
The Secretary of State for Defence, popularly known as the Defence Secretary, is the senior Government of the United Kingdom minister in charge of the Ministry of Defence, chairing the Defence Council. It is a Cabinet position...
, Denis Healey
Denis Healey
Denis Winston Healey, Baron Healey CH, MBE, PC is a British Labour politician, who served as Secretary of State for Defence from 1964 to 1970 and Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1974 to 1979.-Early life:...
, strongly supported the RAF and their plan for long-range strike aircraft, by now the F-111, largely due to the costing issues of running fleet carriers. This meeting resulted in the 1966 Defence White Paper
1966 Defence White Paper
The 1966 Defence White Paper was a major review of the United Kingdom's defence policy brought about by the Labour Party government under the Prime Minister Harold Wilson. The main author was the then Secretary of State for Defence, Denis Healey...
. In this paper the CVA-01 was finally cancelled, along with the remainder of the Type 82 destroyer
Type 82 destroyer
The Type 82 or Bristol-class destroyer was to be a class of four Royal Navy warships intended as area air-defence destroyers to replace the County-class destroyers, and to serve as escorts to the planned CVA-01 aircraft carriers...
s that would have been built as escorts, of which only HMS Bristol
HMS Bristol (D23)
HMS Bristol is a Type 82 destroyer, the only vessel of her class to be built for the Royal Navy. Originally intended as the first of a class of new large destroyers to escort the CVA-01 aircraft carriers projected to come into service in the early 1970s, Bristol turned out to be a unique ship...
was eventually completed. Instead plans were made for the modernisation of Eagle
HMS Eagle (R05)
HMS Eagle was an aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy, in service 1951-1972. With her sister ship , she is one of the two largest British aircraft carriers yet built....
and Ark Royal
HMS Ark Royal (R09)
HMS Ark Royal was an Audacious-class aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy and, when she was decommissioned in 1978, was the Royal Navy's last remaining conventional catapult and arrested-landing aircraft carrier...
.
Subsequent Royal Navy carriers
The cancellation of CVA-01 was planned to be compensated for with the modernisation of both EagleHMS Eagle (R05)
HMS Eagle was an aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy, in service 1951-1972. With her sister ship , she is one of the two largest British aircraft carriers yet built....
and Ark Royal
HMS Ark Royal (R09)
HMS Ark Royal was an Audacious-class aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy and, when she was decommissioned in 1978, was the Royal Navy's last remaining conventional catapult and arrested-landing aircraft carrier...
to enable them to operate the aircraft that were intended for the cancelled ships. However, following Ark Royals three year refit from 1967 to 1970, the decision was then taken not to proceed with a similar rebuild of Eagle, with that ship instead decommissioned in 1972. The Royal Navy did not however completely surrender aircraft carrier capability, despite the eventual withdrawal of Ark Royal in 1978. The concept of the "through-deck command cruiser"
Invincible class aircraft carrier
The Invincible class is a class of light aircraft carrier operated by the British Royal Navy. Three ships were constructed, , and . The vessels were built as aviation-capable anti-submarine warfare platforms to counter the Cold War North Atlantic Soviet submarine threat, and initially embarked...
was first raised in the late 1960s, when it became clear that there was a good chance of the Fleet Air Arm losing fixed-wing capability. The "through-deck cruiser" name was chosen to avoid the stigma of great expense attached to full-size aircraft carriers, with these 20,000 ton ships having 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
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
anti-submarine patrols in the north-east Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
, in support of the American carrier battle group
Carrier battle group
A carrier battle group consists of an aircraft carrier and its escorts, together composing the group. The first naval task forces built around carriers appeared just prior to and during World War II. The Imperial Japanese Navy was the first to assemble a large number of carriers into a single...
s. In order to ensure the safety of the battle group around the "cruiser", the facility to carry the Sea Harrier
BAE Sea Harrier
The British Aerospace Sea Harrier is a naval VTOL/STOVL jet fighter, reconnaissance and attack aircraft, a development of the Hawker Siddeley Harrier. It first entered service with the Royal Navy in April 1980 as the Sea Harrier FRS1 and became informally known as the "Shar"...
was added at a late stage of development, the intention being that it could give the battle group the capability to intercept maurauding Soviet aircraft without having to rely either on land based or US Navy interceptors. The ultimate result of this was the Royal Navy being able to deploy carrier-based aircraft during the Falklands War
Falklands War
The Falklands War , also called the Falklands Conflict or Falklands Crisis, was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the disputed Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...
.
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. 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
Secretary of State for Defence
The Secretary of State for Defence, popularly known as the Defence Secretary, is the senior Government of the United Kingdom minister in charge of the Ministry of Defence, chairing the Defence Council. It is a Cabinet position...
Des Browne
Des Browne
Desmond Henry Browne, Baron Browne of Ladyton is a British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament for Kilmarnock and Loudoun from 1997 to 2010...
, ending several years of delay over cost issues and British naval shipbuilding restructuring.