MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

UK's new “Flexi-Carriers”

Britain's two new super aircraft carriers will be much more versatile and adaptable than those that fought in the Falklands War, according to new details announced by the Ministry of Defence.

The huge warships, the biggest ever to be built in Britain, will be designed to operate both jump jets replacing the Harrier and also catapult-launched jet fighters as on giant United States carriers.

They will incorporate a removable "ski-jump" ramp, similar to those on the three smaller carriers they are replacing ? HMS Invincible which fought in the Falklands War, and her sister ships, HMS Illustrious, the guardship which replaced the home-going Task Force immediately after the war, and HMS Ark Royal.

These ships could operate only short take-off and vertical landing Harriers, which proved so effective in 1982, and helicopters.

The new carriers will be much longer and three times heavier than the Invincible-type trio. Announcing the size and shape of the new carriers, the Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, said that initially the new "flexi-carriers", as they are being called, will have the new jump-jet version of the American Joint Strike Fighter (JSF), of which Britain is buying 150 to replace the veteran Falklands conflict Harriers. These will have the latest stealth technology to make them invisible to enemy radar.

But the ships will be capable of modification to replace the "ski-jump" ramp with a catapult-launch system for conventional take-off and landing of future generation aircraft which may possibly be unmanned combat aerial vehicles.

Total cost of the project for carriers and aircraft will be 13-billion pounds, about 20-billion dollars.

The new carriers will not come into service until 2012 and 2015, eight years after the Harriers will have been phased out. Defence experts, including a decorated hero of the Falklands War, Commander Nigel Ward, have criticised this gap, without dedicated air defence Sea Harriers, as leaving Royal Navy ships unprotected against missiles such as the Exocets which sank British ships in the Falklands War.

Harold Briley, London