"Juergen Nieveler" wrote in message
. ..
"Paul J. Adam" wrote:

Funny, I could have sworn that a couple of Her Majesty's large grey war
canoes were aircraft carriers. In fact, Illustrious is out on OP AQUILA
at the moment with a deckful of Harriers.

She's not a carrier, though - she's a through-deck cruiser ;-)

Only to the die-hards in the Labour Party !

It's an open-secret that the then Labour Government authorised the build of
a class of three 'Through Deck Cruisers'. Anecdotal 'evidence' is that the
Minister was only shown elevations of the vessel - never a overhead view.
The original specs called for a 'huge' number of Gas Turbines which it was
claimed could be utilised to generate electricity in disaster relief
operations to supply (fr'instance) hurricane stricken towns/ports. {Numerous
vugraphs showed how most habitation is adjacent to seas]. It was stated that
the large 'flats' ,aka hangar space, could become emergency casualty wards.
These vessels bore the hull numbers C01, C02, C03.

One of Maggie's first acts was to re-designate them as R05 ~ R07.

--

Brian