Vickers Versatile Aircraft Carrier and 1983 Light Fleet Carrier

overscan (PaulMM)

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Displacing 13,200 tons, space for 16 aircraft. 15deg ski jump. For peacetime operations a helicopter operates from the rear deck, in wartime the rear deck would be built up with containers to lengthen the flight deck. Length 604 ft.

Source:

Flight International, 12 Jan 1980.
 

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Re: Vickers Versatile Aircraft Carrier

overscan said:
For peacetime operations a helicopter operates from the rear deck, in wartime the rear deck would be built up with containers to lengthen the flight deck.

If I may be frank that seems dumb. Why not have a flush deck in the first place? It's not like there's something magical preventing the operation of helicopters from the flight deck.
 
Re: Vickers Versatile Aircraft Carrier

Peacetime helicopter into a hangar without a lift?
 
Re: Vickers Versatile Aircraft Carrier

smurf said:
Peacetime helicopter into a hangar without a lift?

Actually, it's not a bad idea, removing the need for the aft lift and allowing the sole forward elevator to be reserved for fixed wing V/STOL operations. Flight deck area is invaluable, especially for V/STOL deck runs, so I would have questioned the sacrifice, but the reasoning - however flawed in retrospect - behind the clipped deck VVAC is finally clear.
 
Re: Vickers Versatile Aircraft Carrier

overscan said:
Displacing 13,200 tons, space for 16 aircraft. 15deg ski jump. For peacetime operations a helicopter operates from the rear deck, in wartime the rear deck would be built up with containers to lengthen the flight deck. Length 604 ft.

Source:

Flight International, 12 Jan 1980.

Here is the full article:

http://www.flightglobal.com/PDFArchive/View/1980/1980%20-%200090.html
http://www.flightglobal.com/PDFArchive/View/1980/1980%20-%200091.html
http://www.flightglobal.com/PDFArchive/View/1980/1980%20-%200092.html

I will modify the title of this thread to reference the later 24,000 ton Vickers "Light Fleet Carrier" proposal, which seems to have been a post-Falklands evolution of the VVAC concept.
 
I think this may have been an inspiration for the Korean dokdo class ... in terms of concept ..... especially economising deck space with the seemingly peculiar aft arrangement.
 
24,000 ton Vickers "Light Fleet Carrier" proposal - photo of model below

LOA 202m
LWaterline 190m
OA Beam 32m
Draught 8m
Displacement Deep - 23,000 tonnes

Make speed 25kt
Crusing 18kt
Range @ 18kt 10,000nm

Escort replenishment - additional fuel 6,000 tonnes

CODOG twin screw
4 X Spay SM 1A gas turbines arranged in pairs
63,600bhp under temerate conditions

Crew 650

Armament - 18 Sea Kings or 15 Sea Harriers and 2 Sea Kings
2 x VM40 lightweight Sea Wolf - and tracking/illumination radars
Plessey AWS-5 surveillence
Plessy AWS-4 BH search radar
2 x type 1006 nav/surface radar
Ferranti CA AIS type 450 display and data handling
Graseby GI-750 search/attack sonar
Type 2015 expendable bathythermograph
Decca cutlass ESM with ECM option
 

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