CVA-01

[Portsmouth Bill]

Shipbucket at its Best And though I still think the concept was flawed, she would have still been a welcome addition; maybe without Sea Dart, and even with she would have probably lost it during refit (aka the Invincibles), and Seawolf 'close in' with Goalkeepr would have suited better. It would be tempting to include the fabulous Tomcat, but could the RN have afforded it?

[rifleman]

Or the Hornet

[eswube]

It would be tempting to include the fabulous Tomcat, but could the RN have afforded it?

I would love to see rather navalized Tornado - both in fighter and in strike variant.

[Blackbuck]

The Tomcat would be a lot more plausible than a navalized Tornado. That said the Hornet would be a good consideration from the 80s onwards.

[eswube]

Blackbuck - basically You're right, but (in my humble opinion) since Tomcats "are", and Sea Tornados "never-were", like the CVA-01 itself, they are more... how to say it... "fresh".

[Blackbuck]

They'd essentially be the European equivalent to the naval F-111 I guess.

[eswube]

Why? Tornados and F-14s are of the similar size, similar payload, roughly similar weight (Tornado is lighter but with higher payload). Though indeed F-14s have better thrust-to-weight ratio, but I suppose that dogfighting wasn't too high on FAA fighters list of priorities before Sea Harrier (and that was rather out of necessity). F-111B was slightly bigger, much heavier and had just barely more powerful engines than Tornado.
My guess is that Sea Tornado, from the technical point of view wouldn't be necessarily doomed to fail.
Of course I could be wrong.

[Blackbuck]

I was referring to the whole swing wing attack aircraft concept in general. Remember that the the ADV is larger than the IDS and also came around later. Hence my comparison to the F-111.

[eswube]

While comparing sizes of F-14 and Tornado, I was referring specifically to ADV (wingspan with wings folded/lenght/height of F-14 is 11,58 x 19,1 x 4,88m and of Tornado ADV is 8,60 x 18,68 x 5,95m).
It also didn't came around that much later to make it impractical. I mean, F-4 and Buccaneer could (most probably) serve at least until early 90s, so with the development process of navalized Tornado starting around mid 70s (after take-off of the first prototype), the carrier variants (strike earlier, fighter later) could possibly enter squadron service around mid 80s.
While Phantom/Buccaneer mix around 1990 would be quite outdated, on the other hand - which carrier-equipped navy except USN had anything better anyway?
Of course, it probably wouldn't be best carrier aircraft ever, but I think it would be more interesting then "just another F-14 (or F-18)".

[TimothyC]

My understanding is that the elevators can't take a Tomcat, and if the FAA keeps upgrading the Phantoms until the Super Hornet comes around they don't need them.

The Buccaneers get replaced with a supersonic version, and the Brits look to larger elevators on the CVF from the word go.

As for navalizing a fighter - it isn't easy. If you look at the modern aircraft that have flow off of carriers and operated off of land they have either been designed for the carrier at the start (F-4, F-18), or they have been short/rough-field aircraft that were adapted (MiG-29, Harrier).