Brit versus US carriers

[Chris Trott]

I think someone did a comparison of the Ark and the Nimitz class carriers and found the landing area is fairly close in size. The Brits have less "wiggle" room however if they get outside the lines where on US carriers you might just still miss falling off the side or hitting the superstructure. I also seem to remember them finding some plusses to the smaller size of the Ark over the big carriers. I think it was something to do with being able to turn into the wind faster and keep into the swells better than the Nimitz-class boats, so you usually had less deck roll to contend with, making it a tad easier to land (like landing on a postage stamp that's moving in 3 axis at night, in bad weather is ever "easy". )

It will be interesting to compare the Ark against the new fleet of British carriers (if they ever get built) against the new CVX carrier that is being developed here in the US.