[gaius]

One of the much trumpeted features of the QE class is they were going to be modular and upgradable to cats and traps for little cost

Realistically that was never going to happen. We were never going to have steam catapults because a) where would we get the steam with no reactor (and no-one uses conventional steam turbines anymore) and b) steam catapults aren't reliable in arctic waters, which is why previous British and Russian carriers used ski-jumps. And we weren't going to have EMALS either because again, with no nuke where would we get the electrical power?

But the REAL reason is that British Aerospace is involved in the F35 programme and couldn't take the risk that we might shop elsewhere, say Dassault, so they fucked up the design entirely deliberately. Someone should be in jail for that, or at least lose their final-salary pension.

[anexprogrammer]

Quite. The smell was strong from the very first announcement. Didn't stop the media proudly telling us how wonderful and flexible this was. Frankly the whole thing stank and you can be fairly sure the navy wanted cats. Sandy Woodward and Alan West certainly did.

No matter we were going to have 150 F35s by 2012. We've got what, five so far?