Very informative. Had Eagle been updated and both Audacious class kept into the late 1980s, would we see FAA interest in the F/A-18? It could replace both the Phantom and Bucc.
In a word, no.
F/A-18A/B Hornet entered service with the USMC & USN in 1983 and 1984 respectively but did not deploy on a carrier until Aug 1985. Any "what if" RN scenario involving them would be later still.
Time for a reality check re these old ships. They had been laid down in 1942/43. Eagle completed 1951. Ark completed in 1955. So by 1979 you are looking at ships designed in a previous era that were 35-40 years old. Ark Royal was not in a good condition when Phantomised in 1967-70. She was kept going by stripping parts from Eagle and other ships of that generation. This from someone serving on her at the end in 1978 who had also been on Eagle at the end of her life in 1972:-
"...Eagle was in a better material state when she paid off, particularly between decks, than Ark Royal.......It was very hard work for the marine engineers to keep the ship running....she would have to have completed another extensive refit to have kept her going."
Their radars and electronics were outdated, Ark's more so than Eagle in the early 1970s. So would all have needed replaced. Ark Royal's complement after 1970 was 2,640 including those to fly & maintain her airgroups. When recruitment was difficult just how do you persuade people to join up to live in crowded conditions in ships not up the then current standards of modernity let alone those expected in another 10+ years. CVA-01 could have accomodated up to 3,230 under wartime conditions to the latest standards of habitability with full air conditioning to tropical (but not Persian Gulf) standards and with a larger airgroup.
With hindsight and better planning, the money spent on Ark in the late 1960s would have been better spent on Eagle. But the refit sequence was all out of synch for that to happen.
And you have to look at the whole direction that the RN took from the mid-1960s. The big strike carriers necessary for an East of Suez policy were not going to be replaced anytime soon. Instead the focus became anti-submarine warfare in the GIUK Gap in NATO. So the line of development that RN carriers took emerged from the various helicopter carrying ASW "escort cruiser" proposals of the early 1960s (with Tiger & Blake and Hermes & Bulwark in their ASW guise as interim place holders) into the Invincible class whose sketch design was approved in 1970 and the lead ship ordered in 1973 to enter service in 1980. The term "carrier" was a dirty word in political circles at the time so these ships began life as "through deck cruisers". While Invincible was still on the slips it was decided to acquire the BAe Sea Harrier FRS.1 and the ski-jump improved its capabilities. The ancestor of the Sea Harrier, the P.1127, had been landed on Ark Royal as far back as 1963.
And Britain's financial woes only got worse in the 1970s. A new Conservative Govt in 1979 faced some tough choices and that led to the Nott Defence Review of 1981. Tiger had already been taken out of service in 1978 with Blake following in 1979. Bulwark suffered a fire in 1980 that damaged her machinery and it was not repaired before she was laid up in 1981. Had it not been for the Falklands War, Invincible would have been sold to Australia. Hermes and Illustrious would then have been the carrier fleet until a new Ark Royal (v) arrived when Hermes would have been sold/scrapped.
By the mid-1950s none of the WW2 era carriers were suitable for operating the coming generation of aircraft. If Britain was to have stayed in the conventional fixed wing carrier game the decisions about new ships needed to have been taken then. By the mid-1960s Britain's economic woes made replacement next to impossible.