Shipbucket

A very interesting design. Strongly reminds me of the French PA75 design too.
I agree with you about the Phalanx sponson, it does join rather awkwardly. Maybe change the shape of the lower edge slope so it blends in more with the island sponson.

She's looking good Shippy. These were the best F 35's I could find.

I have some concern regarding the lower protrusions (stab fins, sonar, etc). So far as I'm aware, no ships this large have anything other than a flat bottom. This obviously eases the problems encountered during drydocking. Smaller ships tend to just have a forest of support towers underneath, but I'd really rather not try that with something this scale.

I agree with Erik on the fin stabilisers. while the sonar dome might be excused(they just suffer from limited view if you do not put them in an gondola or bow dome), these active stabilisers are just extremely vulnerable. in general, fin stabilisers do not extend below the flat(bottom of the keel) and not outside the overall beam. the only example that comes to mind immediately which does not follow this rule is the perry, and even then it is inside the waterline beam that the stabilisers stay. (the perry also has that huge propeller that extends below the keel and thus needs an larger support in the dock anyways)

ships this scale already have forests of support structures underneath (I have put them under 140 meter inland vessels myself) but in this case, the stabilisers require the entire ship to be pumped up meters higher. that is just not done if it can be helped, and here it can be helped.

other then that, the ship is looking good. with the bridge forward and the heavy sponsons she has the same stubby look as the CdG, which I don't like but is not unrealistic.
the elevators look huge, I would maybe go for the size of one sea king/2 harriers, which might have resulted in it being too small for 2 F-35, which is not entirely unrealistic. even for 2 F-35 I think they are slightly oversized. I still doubt you could have the hangar as far forward as you have it now, and if it was my own vessel I would calculate it through, but I believe you do not take my word for that, which I cannot bring anything against as long as I have not calculated my own doubts. you have lessened the width over there a bit, so it might just work.

Might remove the fin stabilisers my inspiration for them was Italy's Cavour. Probably don't add a lot to a ship this sizes stability anyway.
Sonar domes could possibly go to these were as one of the carriers roles would have been to fulfill the Invincible classes Atlantic ASW duties. But I gues Helos could totally fulfill this.
The elevators are big I admit. My thought, future proofing, also one of the roles for this carrier is as a Commando carrier and providing humaniterian aid so supporting large transport helicopters was needed and again I would have thought looking ahead to the future a Helo larger than the chinook may be built.

Well there are retractable fin stabilizers, they need not be fixed fins. If the tunnel thrusters were either deleted or relocated you could try and work a bow mounted array if you really want one.

I'd forgotten about those monstrous bow thrusters. Those are going to be ungodly noisy anyway; they have no place on a warship IMHO. Delete them in favor of a bow array, make the fin stabilizers retractable (if you wish to keep them; I'd probably delete them, or resize/shape them as on Kirov) and all problems are solved.

you could go for fixed stabilisers if you keep them within the aforementioned footprint of waterline beam and keel, but that might result in smaller ones then you might want. looking at ships of comparable size and age should give the answer you need here.

I am going to go with retractable stabalizers, I think.

Ace would like to no what your opinion is on the Sonar and bow thrusters,

option 1, loose both.
option 2, loose the sonar, keep the thrusters.
option 3, loose the thrusters and have a sonar in the bulbous bow.

this is an question for the role of the carrier. do you want it to be self escorting? or do you keep 3-4 escort ships around it always. I suppose you keep escorts around, in which case helo sonar should be enough IMO.

but! thrusters are horrible things for an fast hull, which make noise and give resistance.
an last option would be to add some retractable propellers, both as get-home device and manoeuvring thruster.