The CVA-01 Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carrier was designed to replace the small, warbuilt carriers of the Royal Navy in the 1960s. Displacing over 50,000 tons and with capacity for up to 50 modern aircraft, they would have allowed the Royal Navy to maintain its significant position in carrier aviation. But, the project was cancelled, along with the proposed Type 82 destroyers that would have escorted them, in the 1966 Defence White Paper. Had these ships been built, it is likely they would have been named HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Duke of Edinburgh.

The Royal Navy did not totally surrender aircraft carrier capability, the first of the Invincible class aircraft carriers were ordered in 1973. These ships, at 20,000 tons, had nothing like the fixed-wing aviation capacity of the planned CVA-01 carrier, their mission was primarily Cold War anti-submarine patrols of the eastern Atlantic. However the provision for a small number of Harrier jets has allowed the Royal Navy to deploy aircraft in the Falklands War, the Persian Gulf, Bosnia and Sierra Leone.

It is this capability that has led to the requirement for a replacement of the current fleet, with current designs (CVF) larger than the cancelled CVA-01 fleet of the 1960s. After forty years, assuming current plans are finalised, the Royal Navy will regain its position in carrier aviation that it lost with the cancellation of the CVA-01 and decommissioning of the remaining big-deck carriers. It is interesting the two planned carriers are rumoured to be named the Queen Elizabeth class. It remains to be seen if they will progress any further through the procurement process than their predecessors.

CVA-01 Carrier (Artist's Impression)