The design of the Light Fleet Aircraft Carriers was intended to fill the gap between the large and highly capable fleet carriers and the much smaller and less capable escort carriers. Due to pressure of work, the design of these aircraft carriers was developed by Vickers-Armstrong rather than by members of the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors. The shipbuilders chose to make it as simple as possible and to adopt mercantile building standards in order to reduce the construction time to a minimum.
The basic design of the 1942 Light Fleet Aircraft Carrier.
The main characteristics of the original design were as follows:
- Displacement: 13,190 tons (Standard); 18,040 tons (Full load)
- Dimensions:
- Length: 695ft (212m) overall; 690ft (210m) flight deck
- Beam: 80ft (24m)
- Draught: 23ft 6in (7.16m)
- Propulsion: 4 Admiralty three-drum boilers providing steam to 2 sets of Parson’s steam turbines, each driving a propeller
- Speed: 25 knots
- Armament: 6 × 4-barrelled 2-pounder anti-aircraft guns; 16 x twin 20mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns
It was expected that the sixteen ships that were planned to be built would have an operational life of three years and would be scrapped once the war was over.
Bob,
ReplyDeleteI am looking forward to Part 2! How many aircraft were these light fleet carriers were expected to carry?
Chris,
DeletePart 2 will follow in a couple of days ... I hope!
They were originally intended to carry up to 52 aircraft (e.g. Seafires, Fireflys).
All the best,
Bob
Bob -
ReplyDeleteThey seem to be pretty versatile units. Fifty-two aircraft seems a decent number for relatively small carriers.
Cheers,
Ion
Archduke Piccolo (Ion),
DeleteAs the next two parts will show, this class became the backbone of many postwar navies and provided them with aircraft carriers they would otherwise not have been able to acquire and operate. Their biggest problem was that they were never able to operate the heavier aircraft that came into service in the latter part of the twentieth century.
All the best,
Bob
A nice start to this 'series' Bob and as mentioned above, a pretty decent number of planes they could carry. Interesting to see that they could not cope with the heavier post-War aircraft.
ReplyDeleteSteve J.,
DeleteI hope that you enjoy the rest of this series of blog posts.
The weight of aircraft grew quite significantly between 1939 and 1945 (a fully-loaded 1939 Spitfire Mk.1 weighed 5,800lbs and a 1945 Seafire F Mk.III weighed 7,232lbs) and as later propeller aircraft and jets came into service, they were even heavier (a fully-loaded Sea Fury weighed 12,350lbs and the Sea Hawk weighed 16,150lbs). They did experiment with trying to produce lighter naval jet fighters (the wheel-less Sea Vampire, for example, which was designed to land on a sprung rubber flight deck!), but the inexorable increase of weight was seemingly unstoppable.
All the best,
Bob