New USN CVL

[timmymagic]

How about South Korea coming 35000 tons carriers ? smaller than Q.E, non-nuclear like CdG. In fact roughly the tonnage of LHA.
Except they don't presently exist, of course.

Depends which version as well. DSME's looks like a lengthened Trieste, Hyundai's was a little larger and longer.

But again at that point the cost is likely to be similar to a 75,000 QE Class...which is far more flexible and capable. The Trieste cost c£1bn, but I suspect some of the equipment and design costs were not included in that figure. Great ship, wish we were getting a couple to be honest.

 

[H_K]

I’ve been thinking about this CVL conundrum… using big deck amphibs as “Lightning carriers” just isn’t a satisfactory solution.

So here's my take on a 35,000 ton "Lightning Plus" carrier with ~30 F-35Bs, compared to LHA (below) and CVN (top).

Next I'll add back the angled deck to illustrate what the same design would look like with STOBAR capability for more flexibility (eg. to add E-2D AEW if these can be qualified for ski jump launch).

As promised, here's the same 35,000 ton carrier in STOBAR configuration with ~30 F-35Cs instead of F-35Bs.

The difference in terms of aircraft flow is insignificant - the safe parking line moves out a little to accommodate the maximum wing span of the E-2D Hawkeye (80ft) with the usual safety margin. This is offset by the F-35C's smaller spot factor (folding wings) which makes deck parking easier.

So adding STOBAR capability should be a low cost way to allow the US to flex the airwing between USN and USMC squadrons. And to add AEW capability and in the future UAVs or UCAVs. For example, a possible air group might be 24x F-35B/C, 4x Growler or MQ-25, 2 E-2Ds + 4 helos.

Hopefully this exercise demonstrates that a very capable CVL can be built that would fit within the size & cost enveloppe of current LHAs, i.e. without blowing the budget.

P.S. The advantage of starting with Charles de Gaulle as my design template is that it provides a credible baseline in terms of aviation capability (CdG was designed for 36 F/A-18s). Replacing the nuclear plant with conventional propulsion is fairly trivial in terms of internal arrangements (counterintuitive I know, but the nuke plant requires a lot of volume). Of course the same exercise could be done using Cavour/Trieste or an LHA as a starting point (however the mods would be much more extensive).