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Yeah the Franklin and Bunker Hill.. why did I think Boxer? Both were fully and completely rebuilt, low miles, METICULOUSLY maintained, and as fresh as a daisy.. well as fresh as one that had been sitting in cold storage for 15 years. They could have been fitted with thin metal decks, and the Australians were pretty certain they could operate modified Phantoms from them when they tried to pitch an Essex acquisition to their parliament.. USN thought the J79 phantom was marginal on them, F4K is a different story. As I recall one of the initial requirements for the F/A-18 was an ability to operate from CVA-19(Essex) class carriers and when they were talking about reactivating Oriskany in the 80's it was the lack of available Hornet squadrons, not the inability to operate them, that pushed them to consider using Marine A-4 squadrons on her(the were also thin on A-7s).. they just didn't have enough birds, and it made no financial sense to pull F-8s or F-11's out of storage for one ship for the USN. Australia wanted to get two, they figured the costs would be about 50-66% that of a CVA01 which they were also considering, inclusive of building IN Australia.BTW that reactivation would have cost about $500mil and given her a 20 year lifespan, and a metal flight deck.. for the same amount of cash they could do an update of a Kittyhawk.. labor costs the same per hour regardless of the tonnage of the hull.
Yeah the Franklin and Bunker Hill.. why did I think Boxer? Both were fully and completely rebuilt, low miles, METICULOUSLY maintained, and as fresh as a daisy.. well as fresh as one that had been sitting in cold storage for 15 years. They could have been fitted with thin metal decks, and the Australians were pretty certain they could operate modified Phantoms from them when they tried to pitch an Essex acquisition to their parliament.. USN thought the J79 phantom was marginal on them, F4K is a different story. As I recall one of the initial requirements for the F/A-18 was an ability to operate from CVA-19(Essex) class carriers and when they were talking about reactivating Oriskany in the 80's it was the lack of available Hornet squadrons, not the inability to operate them, that pushed them to consider using Marine A-4 squadrons on her(the were also thin on A-7s).. they just didn't have enough birds, and it made no financial sense to pull F-8s or F-11's out of storage for one ship for the USN. Australia wanted to get two, they figured the costs would be about 50-66% that of a CVA01 which they were also considering, inclusive of building IN Australia.
BTW that reactivation would have cost about $500mil and given her a 20 year lifespan, and a metal flight deck.. for the same amount of cash they could do an update of a Kittyhawk.. labor costs the same per hour regardless of the tonnage of the hull.
