Shipbucket

When I get some time i will start working on design, but I'm gonna start from the inside out, I still want to keep to a maximum of 32,000 tons. And the length no greater than 250m. 2 reactors and still have the provision of STOVL convertable to CATOBAR....

you are going to have trouble with that, but ok. the CDG is 45000 tons light IIRC, and is about that very same length, and is effectively too short and too small for many things.

To short and too small to be a conventional carrier..... The French operate Etendards, Rafales and Hawkeyes. I am still going down the STOVL route remember this is the 1980's and the RN FAA consisted of Harriers and Helecopters.... A 250m carrier is still acceptable, I want the STOVL to CATBAR option as in 1983 the F35 wasn't in visaged yet.... The airwing is still going to be upto 28 Harriers and 10 AEW and ASW Helecopters..... Remember at the time the British government was anti carrier so ships had to be designed for multiple roles hence why I've chosen the Carrier/Comando/ASW roles, she needs to be viable and adaptable.

One other possibility is marine diesels but might be a sacrifice in speed and then the problem of steam for the CATOBAR conversion if it were required......

yes, the CDG operates them
but the catapults are known to be too short and thus have an heavier acceleration, limiting the aircrafts service time and straining the crew more then you would want.

I really fail to see why they would be anti carrier but approve an nuclear ship.

There is a reason the Invincibles were called through deck cruisers and not carriers and it wasn't to do with there design............

In my very first post i put that they seen the problems during the Falklands war so the anti carrier bit is slowly being resolved but ships still needed to be multi role the RN is no USN so can't afford ships of specific types for specific roles.

still, I really fail to see why they would be anti carrier but approve an nuclear ship.

Look back at the RN 1950 through to 1976 the carriers have always been smaller with short CATs the RN simply devised ways around this, extended nose wheels for greater angle of attack lowering take off speed, bridal designs again to raise aircraft noses and lower take of speed, blown surfaces, RN Bucaneers served from 1960's through to 1976 with the demise of Ark Royal some carried on with the RAF till 1993, 30 odd years, The RN and indeed the whole British service seems good at making designs and aircraft last The RN phantoms again served with the RAF till the mid 90's after gruelling FAA careers.

So reducing the strain is possible if not entirely ideal, but my main design is still STOVL....

yes, but at that time aircraft were smaller and required less takeoff speed. but now we are looking at the area after CVA, and look at the size that ship was.
also, this is especially noted at the CDG, which needed the long landing deck for the hawkeyes but had an size restriction and thus has very short cats. you can of course mingle with this more and make the landing deck shorter and the cats longer, but even then you run against restrictions.

don't get me wrong though, I like the idea of giving the RN an carrier in this time era again. the idea of doing that with an centaur based nuclear design which is STOBAR but can be rebuild to CATOBAR is not what I would think an logical way to do so.

Landing deck and cat length don't really have any effect on each other one can overlap or completely cover the other look at CVA01 or Eagle or Ark Royal. On all USN Carrier Cats 3 and 4 Generally are on the landing angled deck.
The only thing that is effected is the ability to launch and recover simultaneously.

On most carriers with multiple cats in variably when launching and recovering only one cat is available, even on USN carriers only cat 1 is used normally as the deck over cat 2 is used as a forward deck park whilst recovery of aircraft renderer s cats 3 and 4 out of use. But retain the ability if shit hits the fan to rapidly launch aircraft from all cats at the expense of recovery....

Plus I think I need to clear up something here you keep referring to STOBAR my design would be initially STOVL no traps but with the ability to be fitted catered for:-

CATOBAR - catapult take off barrier assisted landing (cats and traps (arrestor wires)) USN, CDG, RN Pre'79 etc
STOBAR - short take off barrier assiste landing (ski jump and traps) Russia, China, India soon
STOVL - short take off vertical landing (ski jump landing spots) RN post '79, Spain, Italy, Tailand elledgidly

Don't mean to sound patronising.