Originally Posted by
Davef68
I remember seeing Royal Navy papers in the 90s (or early 200s) relating to CVF which showed hangar deck plans with 'boxes' for FA-18E and E-2, so a CTOL option was certainly considered.
As were STOBAR (the comedy of Navalised Eurofighter) and even ASTOBAR.
The earliest public domain paper was by a couple of Naval Constructors in 1997/8.