ICBM, Orca
Do we know that the £1.8Bn is a valid ACA cost estimate? I repeat, the hardware cost of EMALS and AAG are known. The "unknowns" are :
1. Integrating the EMALS/AAG into the ship power management system. The whole system cost less than £100M, so worst case, that's your cost.
2. EMI/EMC with the ships local systems - possibly an issue, but tbc.
3. What on earth at least 12 million manhours (the difference twixt hardware costs and "the cost") could credibly be spent on?
One point - the "flexible design" was never meant to have a full detailed design for exact installation of the cat n'trap systems in it - apart from anything else the ITAR issues prevented that until the FMS approval.
The point of the flexible design was to ensure that the deck was big enough and with area in the correct places to allow an angled deck, there was sufficient "free" space in the gallery deck to fit the below deck systems and that there was sufficient provision in the weight / stability budget to allow for heavy cats etc up top. If those elements had not been in the design from the off, then we would not be having this debate.