Originally Posted by WEB
Surely it was December? Sea Harriers/Harriers had similar issues with jetwash, FOD, noise, night flying etc as the old Phantoms and Buccaneers. Saying "30 years" plays down the skills loss post SDSR, unless we embark Harriers aboard Illustrious/Queen Elizabeth.
I'm not sure you will convince me regarding this issue..
The last real carriers we had with both catapults and arrester gear was in the last century and the core skills have gone the same way as the wardroom piano of the last real Eagle class Ark Royal.
I would guess the transition for a flight deck crew from a conventional carrier to an Invincible class would be fairly easy to achieve but .... Asking the crew of the Invincible class to man the deck of a conventional carrier would be met with blank faces.
Catapult connection was always down to stokers, getting the aircraft to the catapult was down to aircraft handlers. Not sure about arrester gear but I am guessing the wire on the upper deck would be the easy bit to play with
The nitty gritty workings between decks is the complicated box of tricks.
Redesigning these new carriers to have the cats and traps is not a five minute job and I guess it will cost more than a fiver to have the plans redrawn, but it's only money and we all know how well of the Ministry of Defence is.