HMS Eagle Rebuild Plans

starviking

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Hi,

There is a reference in the Wikipedia entry that the late 50s refit of HMS Eagle was originally more ambitious, including plans to stretch the hull by 40 feet. I have been unable to source any more information on this, do any forum members have any more information?
 
David Hobbs British Aircraft Carriers mentions that they originally proposed a full modernisation refit in 1955 for Eagle but at £16.5 m it was rejected and a less ambitious upgrade was approved. So it sounds quite possible as it meant replacing the machinery as per Victorious.

A pity really as I suspect Eagle may possibly have been able to operate the J-79 Phantom unrestricted with the extra length.
 
Geoff_B said:
David Hobbs British Aircraft Carriers mentions that they originally proposed a full modernisation refit in 1955 for Eagle but at £16.5 m it was rejected and a less ambitious upgrade was approved. So it sounds quite possible as it meant replacing the machinery as per Victorious.

A pity really as I suspect Eagle may possibly have been able to operate the J-79 Phantom unrestricted with the extra length.

I've often wondered what serious rebuilds for the Audacious class could have offered to the fleet, but the Victorious rebuild poisoned that well :'(
 
Hmmm, my Wiki-sceptic meter is high on this one.

Friedman in British Carrier Aviation mentions that the 1951 rebuild plan was HMS Victorious then Implacable during 1953-55 and Indefatigable during 1954-57. Once refitted Implacable would replace Eagle in service to allow her to refit with receive steam catapults in 1956. Ark Royal commissioning in 1954 would make the fifth fleet carrier. In June 1952 the rebuild plan was halted by the Admiralty due to experience of rebuilding Victorious. So any major rebuild plans for Eagle were probably short-lived.

D.K. Brown in Rebuilding the Royal Navy also refers to the planned modernisation in 1955 costing £16.5 million taking 6 years which was rejected for a cheaper 'austere' £11 million 4-year refit, being approved in 1958 to allow operation of NA.39, Sea Vixens and P.177. He gives no details on the expensive scheme but it seems unlikely to have been too radical, given only £5 million was saved in trimming back the requirements, although its worth noting that this cheaper refit still gave 'A' standard in the carrier capability standards approved in October 1956 (listed in Friedman, A, B*, B, C, C(H), D, E, F; Eagle had been refitted to 'D' standard in 1954-55). Both Brown and Friedman agree that the 1958 refit was to 'A' and was still extensive, so we can only guess at what the extra £5 million and 2 years of added work might have been for. I can't see the Admiralty going back on their 1952 decision not to pursue structural rebuilds and I'm sure Brown would have been tempted to add more detail if something radical had been planned.

Victorious and Implacable were to be reboilered (cancelled for Victorious to save money and time) neither was to receive new turbines and it seems unlikely that Eagle would have required new turbines having only been completed in 1951 and having more powerful machinery than the earlier ships. Also Victorious had her flight deck lengthened 22ft. None of the proposals for the rebuilds of the older ships included hull length increases, probably for obvious reasons of cost and effort. Again, Eagle was already larger and had better hangar capacity. I think the 40ft extension on the Wiki page is actually meant to be flight deck extension rather than the hull. Without any accurate sources to back up those claims it sounds like misunderstanding to me, confusing reboilering with new engines and deck and hull lengths.
 
It feasible to do such an extension, but the cost to capability improvement is questionable.
 
Thanks for the commentary folks, and for the detailed analysis Hood: I concur with your opinion on flight deck extensions.
 
40 isn't the length of a Scimitar or Sea Vixen. It would need to be 60ft to be useful in the hanger.
 
zen said:
40 isn't the length of a Scimitar or Sea Vixen. It would need to be 60ft to be useful in the hanger.
Unless of course there was an odd 20 feet that they couldn't use.
 
I have wondered this myself, I suspect by process of comparison with Victorious and analysis of areas unaddressed by the refit it is possible to come up with a list of potential changes that were proposed in the initial £16.5m figure (which is c.50% higher than the original austere estimate).

Assuming the wiki commentary remotely reflects some sort of source (who knows?) Hood is probably right, Victorious style flight deck extensions and reboilering. The latter would have gone some way to resolving her lack of steam post-refit. The question is how would this have been achieved, how easy was it to access the boiler rooms in the Audacious class to replace boilers?

Other potential changes could have included a completely new all AC electrical system, 3" guns as replacements for the original 4.5" weapons and further improvements to habitability.

The austere refit seems to have been an activity in ticking the Standard A boxes whilst avoiding anything else.
 
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A pity really as I suspect Eagle may possibly have been able to operate the J-79 Phantom unrestricted with the extra length.
So we could see here still in service in 1981 as would love to see here with Phantoms along side Hermes and Invincible having Harriers ore would she still be scrapped in 1978.
 
40 isn't the length of a Scimitar or Sea Vixen. It would need to be 60ft to be useful in the hanger.
According to a post on Quora, the question- and- answer website, by one David Rendhal, in answer to the question "Did the Malta class aircraft carrier ever have a chance of being built or was it just a distant dream?", "Eagle was going to have her bows lengthened to make room for the longer catapults- but it was deemed too expensive". This sounds plausible.
 
It is really a pity they picked Ark Royal rather than Eagle, to last beyond 1970. Since the latter was in better material shape than the former... oh well. I know the decision process, 1965-1970 was extremely contrieved if not utterly tortured.
 

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