Last updated on September 18th, 2021 at 02:42 pm
Have you ever wondered why the US Ford class carriers have an angled flight deck while the UK’s Queen Elizabeth class carriers don’t? Let’s find out!
The Queen Elizabeth class is conceptually different from the US supercarriers or the Russian/Chinese carriers.
The US supercarriers are Catapult Assisted Take-Off Barrier-Arrested Recovery (CATOBAR) carriers. Planes get sling-shotted off the front, and land on the angled deck. An excellent design for maximum power projection, at a ruinous cost.
The Russian/Chinese carriers are Short Take-Off Barrier-Arrested Recovery (STOBAR) designs. Planes take off using their own engines but land normally on the angle. Not quite as combat-capable, but far less prone to breakage, especially with the boost from the British-invented ski-jump.
The Queen Elizabeth carriers are Short Take-Off, Vertical Landing (STOVL) designs similar to the US’ big deck amphibious ships. The Queen Elizabeth class incorporates the simpler ski-jump take off design of the STOBAR carriers, but adds vertical landing instead of conventional landing down an angled deck.
The reasons for this are simple:
So, the UK’s new carriers lack an angled deck because… they don’t need it!
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Thanks I always wanted to now that
Catapults involve "ruinous" cost? That's just too judgemental. F35Bs could equally said to be ruinously costly and with constrained capabilities.