model aircraft carriers

The Royal Navy's last conventional aircraft prior to the projected Queen Elizabeth / CVF class, Ark Royal was laid down in the depths of World War II, but did not enter service until a decade later, at a point when the British carrier force was well into a decline that would culminate in 1978 with the ship's retirement.

The Audacious class carriers were designed as improved Implacables, with greater aircraft capacity, taller hangars. Ark Royal was laid down as Audacious at Cammell Laird in May 1943, but wartime demands had kept her from being finished, and it was not until May 1950 that she was launched. Construction continued at a slow pace, with commissioning finally taking place in 1955. This delay was beneficial in a way, as Ark was then the most modern British carrier, incorporating from the start advances that had been tested on her half-sister Eagle and other ships. A five-degree angled deck was fitted, as were a pair of steam catapults; as commissioned, there was a port-side deck edge lift, but this would be of limited value in flight operations, and was subsequently removed.

Ark was updated throughout her 1960s service, gradually losing most of her AA armament, and receiving a mirror landing system. In 1967, a major refit was undertaken in order to keep the ship viable for one last major period of service - principal among the alterations was extending the flight deck angle to 8 degrees and other improvements to enable the carrier to operate the F-4K Phantom and Buccaneer S.2 in place of the obsolete Sea Venom and Buccaneer S.1. The remaining gun armament was deleted, and although she was to have Seacat SAM launchers for close-in defense, these were never fitted.

Ark Royal recommissioned in 1970, giving the RN a three-carrier force. This was not to last, as within two years Eagle had been decommissioned and Hermes became a helicopter ship. Despite an increasingly poor condition Ark continued in service well past her expected retirement, without support of spares removed from the laid-up Eagle. After a final deployment in 1978, the ship was decommissioned, and was stricken shortly thereafter. The hulk was retained for a short time, but was sold for scrapping in 1980.

Bibliography

"Skyray is deck-launched - feat performed aboard Ark Royal" Naval Aviation News June 1958 p.34 1 photo

Fleet Air Arm Aircraft:

This is a physically large landscape format "coffee table" book, the primary focus of which is photographic coverage of the ships themselves. No in depth history & analysis. I've tried to list some of the notable aircraft images in the book:

Curtiss F6C-3 in the hangar deck of USS Lexington
Boeing F4B-4 parked on Ranger with tail on outrigger
Full page shot of a torpedo being loaded on an Avenger
color shot of F4F-4s aboard USS Santee (CVE-29)
Large color shot of an Avenger on a CV elevator
color shot of an ordnance crew reloading an F4U's guns
color shot of Avengers and Hellcats aboard Yorktown (CV-10) with wings folded and engines running.
large photo of F2H-2s and F8Fs aboard USS Franklin Roosevelt.
large photo of an F2H-2 launch from Forrestal
large photo - VA-81 A-4 launch
F-8 BuNo 148677
large color photo of Sea Harriers aboard HMS Invincible
large photo of F2H-2s overflying USS Coral Sea
color shot of a pair of F3H Demons

An evolution of the Illustrious class were the two Implacable-class carriers of 1944. these had an increased flight deck area, allowing for a larger air group, but the hangar height was lowered, keeping F4U aircraft from being taken below decks. Top speed was raised to 32kts, thanks to the addition of two boilers and a fourth shaft.

The Implacables were laid down in 1939, but the absolute need to concentrate on escort production early in the war kept them from being comepleted until 1944. The nameship took part in strikes against the German battleship Tirpitz, but most action was seen in the Pacific. In April 1945, Indefatigable was struck by a Kamikaze while conducting airstrikes on the Sakishima Islands in suppoort of the invasion of Okinawa. The Japanese strike killed 14, but the carrier was able to resume flight operations a few hours later.

Both Implacables survived the war, but were scrapped in 1955-56 as the costs of bringing the ships up to the standard of the HMS Victorius (the rebuild of which was not yet complete) would be too too high.

Audacity - the first Royal Navy CVE: Always overshadowed by the far larger and more glamorous fleet carriers, the humble CVE or "jeep" carriers played at least as an important role in the Allied victory. The little "combustible, vulnerable, and expendable" ships sank U-boats, shot down German reconnaissance aircraft, provided air support to landings in the Pacific, ferried USAAF aircraft, and some even acted as oilers.

The first of many dozens of CVEs had an unlikely origin as the German liner Hannover, which had been captured by the British in 1940. At the time, the Royal Navy was desperately searching for a means to put airpower to sea for convoy protection, and as an expedient chose the damaged Hannover for conversion to the first escort carrier. Renamed Audacity, her superstructure was cut away to allow for the fitting of a flight deck; as time was of the essence, there would be no hangar. Audacity's air group was restricted to a half-dozen American-built F4Fs, named Martlet by the Fleet Air Arm.

Audacity had a short operational life, between September and December 1941. All of her deployments were to cover convoys to or from Gibraltar, and her Grummans soon proved their worth, shooting down a total of five Condors. On December 21, outbound from Gibraltar, she was struck by three torpedoes from U-571 and sunk.

The workhorses of the postwar USN carrier fleet, the Midway class flattops were created to fight the war against the Japanese, and indeed had the nameship been finished a few months earlier, she would have seen action in the Pacific. At the time, surely no one could have foreseen that the ship would remain in active service, albeit greatly modernized, for another forty-seven years.

Midway's origins predate Pearl Harbor, and indeed the basic design was being developed more or less in parallel with the Essex class. Although not yet an active participant in the war, by 1940 the USN was watching developments closely, particularly the performance of the British armored carriers in the Mediterranean. Although American carrier doctrine dictated that a ship's aircraft would form the principal line off defense, since a heavily-armored carrier would be less effective in its primary role thanks to a smaller aircraft capacity, it was also recognized that any ship under serious air attack could be expected to take hits. Seeking to introduce an enhanced level of protection while retaining a large American ­style air wing, the USN evolved a design larger than any previous American carrier.

Some of the preliminary designs included large caliber guns for use against enemey cruisers, as at the time carriers were still seen as being vulnerable to such attack, especially at night. The CV-B scheme had four 6-inch turrets, plus eight more single weapons, with an Essex-type island and three centerline elevators. The larger CV-A had three triple eight-inch turrets and eight 5'/38s, with two centerline lifts and portside deck edge elevator. The CV-D was an armored carrier on the proportions of the Essex, which would have sufferred from the same small air wing as the British armored CVs; the large CV-E actually served as the starting basis for the Midways.

Well over 900 feet long and displacing 60,000 tons at full load, the Midways would be even larger than the converted battlecruisers Lexington and Saratoga. In order to achieve a top speed of 33 knots, designers gave the class a basic hull form similar to the Iowa class battleships. Recognizing the need for an improved close-in antiaircraft capability, the Midways were to have an exceptionally extensive gun armament. No fewer than eighteen five-inch turrets were projected, and these would use brand-new 54-caliber weapons with better performance than the earlier 38-caliber guns. Experience had shown that weapons on the edges of the flight deck often caused blast damage to parked aircraft, which were of course a carrier's main reason for being. Thus, the five-inch turrets and virtually all smaller weapons were fitted on galleries on either side of the hull below the flight deck.

As commissioned, the Midways could accomodate an air wing of over 140 aircraft, but with the straight deck configuration this did not translate into a great increase in striking power as the aircraft could not be launched and retrieved any faster than from the smaller Essex class ships. The Midway's size did however allow a useful margin of growth as naval aircraft became larger and heavier, as well as providing more volume for aviation fuel and munitions. Midway first went to sea with wartime Vought Corsairs, F6F Hellcats, and Curtiss Helldivers, but big changes were in store for naval aviation. On July 21, 1946, Roosevelt was the base for carrier trials of McDonnell's Phantom I jet fighter, marking the first time that an all-jet aircraft had operated from a US carrier. In September of the following year, Midway hosted Operation SANDY, the first firing of a ballistic missile from a ship. The captured German V-2 used in the test was fired from a rig on the aft part of the flight deck.

Although all three Midways were in active service at the outset of hostilities in Korea, none of the class would see action during that conflict, as carrier strength (with the associated nuclear deterrent) had to be maintained in the NATO theater as well. The size of the Midways allowed (barely) for operations with JATO-launched P2V Neptunes; in a demonstration of the long-range strikes possible by this arrangement, Midway launched a P2V off Norfolk that flew first to Panama, and from there San Diego nonstop, covering 4,880 miles. These interim nuclear bombers were soon replaced by the North American AJ Savage.

Following the lead of the Essex-class rebuild programs, the Midways were refitted to angle-deck configuration in the mid to late 1950s. The basic program, designated SCB-110, involved a general upgrading that included sealing off the bow, fitting new electronics, and adding a pair of steam catapults. The elevator arrangement was also altered; the port side deck lift was retained to serve as the end of the angle deck, and the forward centerline lift was extended to handle large aircraft, but the rear center elevator was incompatible with the angle deck configuration, and was replaced by a deck edge unit aft of the island. The angled deck conversions immediately allowed a great increase in the striking power of the class; with axial decks, they were restricted to operating such types as the McDonnell Banshee, Grumman Panther, and Skyraider, but angled deck allowed for more potent aircraft such as the F8U Crusader, F3H Demon, and A3D Skywarrior. FDR hosted the first deployment of Skywarriors aboard a non-Forrestal class ship when VAH-3 Sea Dragons deployed with its A3D-1s in late 1957.

These alterations did not come without a price, as the waterline armor had to be removed, and the portside gallery was all but sacrificed to accommodate the angle deck. The number of AA weapons was also reduced; FDR and Coral Sea had never received the full fit of five-inch turrets in any case. Actually, only Midway and FDR received SCB-110 proper, as Coral Sea was put through SCB-110A, which deleted all the existing elevators in favor of two starboard side deck edge lifts and one port side unit that did not impede the angle deck.

Midway was put through an extensive alteration (SCB-101.66) in the late 1960s that saw the ship emerge as nearly an equal to the Forrestal class carriers. Although nothing could be done about the hangar height, the elevators were enlarged, more powerful catapults, and over an acre of area was added to the flight deck. It had been planned to refit Roosevelt to a similar standard, but the refit had cost much more than anticipated, and Midway would end up being the sole SCB-101.66 ship.

The Midways' first taste of combat would come during the Vietnam War, and all three ships would participate in the conflict at one point or another. Indeed, Coral Sea carried out some of the first airstrikes of the war in 1965, and later that year Midway fighters scored the first air-to-air kills of North Vietnamese MiGs. Midway was on hand in 1975 to cover the evacuation as South Vietnam fell, and later brought back to the US South Vietnamese aircraft that had been flown out to Thailand as Saigon succumbed to the NVA.

During the 1970s, the Midways were redesignated as CV multirole carriers; this was really only a paperwork change, as S-3 ASW aircraft were never operationally carried, leaving the class as attack carriers in all but name. FDR was the first of the class to go, being decommissioned in 1978 and scrapped two years later. Coral Sea was earmarked for use as a training ship, but the expansion of the Navy in the 1980s kept her in operational service while newer ships were being built.

Coral Sea saw action against Libya in 1986, and did not finally retire until 1990; sold for scrap in 1993, the "Coral Maru" hung on as a stripped hulk for another seven years, until the last bits of the old ship disappeared under cutting torches. Midway, which since the 1970s had been forward-deployed in Japan, was rebuilt once again in the late 1980s, receiving hull bulges that actually ended up causing the ship to roll more and making it harder for pilots to land. She nevertheless continued in service, deploying to the the Middle East in the fall of 1990 for Operation Desert Shield. Midway operated from within the Persian Gulf itself for Desert Storm, and her Hornets and Intruders dropped over four million pounds of ordnance on Iraqi targets.

The first and last of the class to see service, Midway decommissioned in 1992, and even then she was kept on the Naval Vessels Register for some time for potential recall as a training ship. She was stricken in 1997, but was retained in storage at Bremerton until being donated for use as a museum ship. Midway was towed to California for refurbishment in 2003, opening as a museum at San Diego the following year.

Bibliography:
Photo: FDR, All Hands March 1946, p.2
"Flattop in the Arctic" All Hands May 1946 - USS Midway in Operation Frostbite"

"Midway Finds Snow Biggest Foe on its cruise in Arctic" (Operation Frostbite) Naval Aviation News October 1946 p.26 1 photo

Photo: F9F aboard CVB-42 Aviation Week May 22, 1950 cover

Photo: Reserve F6F aboard Midway. Naval Aviation News June 1950 p.14

"Modernized FDR Rejoins Fleet" Naval Aviation News June 1956 p.12 three photos.

"Coral Sea Overhaul" All Hands June 1966 p.36 Refitting of CVA-43 at San Francisco. Two photos.

"FDR Back from First Combat Cruise" Naval Aviation News May 1967

"A visiti to the Sixth Fleet - Soviet ships maneuver close to FDR during Med operations" Naval Aviation News March 1968 p.25 3 photos

Larry R. Teteak "Queen of the Seas - USS Enterprise" Scale Modeler october 1980. Building the Lindberg 1/400 scale CVAN-65.

"Richard Quinlan's 1/72 scale USS Nimitz" FineScale Modeler August 1987 p.22-25

"Workbench Reviews: 1/350 USS Lexington from Trumpeter" FineScale Modeler September 2005 p.64-65

"Workbench Reviews: Dragon 1/700 scale USS Belleau Wood CVL-24" FineScale Modeler September 2007 p.57

[Photo: VF-153 Banshee aboard USS Wasp] Naval Aviation News January 1957 p.24
[Photo: Regulus I missile launched from USS Hancock] Naval Aviation News February 1957 p.23