As well as some pretty poor staff work by the RN in the 60's the most famous incident was the redrawing of the map of the Indian Ocean by the RAF to demonstrate the reach of shore based air defence. The same trick was attempted in the 2000s by the then CAS but spotted by an astute PSO to the Minister.
Nope, that's pure folklore peddled by the fisheaded ones. The so-called 'map' issue was probably down to something as simple as a staute mile / nautical mile error. Something similar nearly caused the loss of the Spitfire Vcs from USS Wasp to reinforce Malta, when the RAF worked in statute miles and the Navy in nautical miles....
The Spitfires were then launched rather too far from Malta for comfort.
CVA01 was binned with our 'East of Suez' policy when the Labour Government decided that we'd stop playing world policeman...
A great shame - but with Earl Mountbottom having royally shafted TSR2, understandably there wasn't much love lost between senior officers in the MoD-box at the time.
As for the F-35 and the Queen Elizabeth class carriers, what an
utter goat this whole issue is. Aircraft carriers with no fixed wing aircraft able to be operated from them? Does the UK go back to the F-35B and no CATOBAR capability, given that the F-35C is years away from success - or an interim F-18/E/F/G acquisition and modification of both carriers to CATOBAR state to remove the risk of the whole F-35 programme going tits-up in a big way?