The Age of Invincible by Nick Childs

Author:Nick Childs
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bisac Code 1: HIS027150
ISBN: eBook ISBN: 9781844681921
Publisher: Pen and Sword
Published: 2009-04-21T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

For Sale

On Tuesday, 2 June 1981, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother had launched the new Ark Royal, the third Invincible-class carrier, at the Swan Hunter shipyard at Wallsend on the Tyne. She had performed the same ceremony for the previous Ark Royal thirty-one years before.

But the Defence Secretary, John Nott, had already put a dampener on proceedings. His review was reaching its climax. Speculation, rumour, and leaks about big cuts in the Navy were already in wide circulation. In a bad-tempered debate in the House of Commons two weeks before the launch, Nott had said of Ark Royal as she waited to thunder down the slipway: ‘I do not think she would have been ordered if we were making the decision today’.

And, sure enough, three weeks after the new ship had taken to the water for the first time, Nott announced the decision, as part of his review, that only two of the three Invincibles would be kept in service. But which two?

The name ship of the class, Invincible herself, had been nearly a year in trials already. At the beginning of March, the ship and her crew had suffered a tragic setback, when two of her Sea Kings, while performing manoeuvres around the carrier in misty conditions in the Channel, had collided in mid-air. Five crewmen were lost. The effect on the ship’s company was devastating. A pall and a silence fell over Invincible. That evening, Malcolm Fuller sat gloomily in Neil Rankin’s cabin as the two searched for answers as to how it could have happened. Captain Livesay made a poignant broadcast to the ship’s company. His message was that, if the lives of those lost were to be honoured, the ship had to press on, to make a success of what they had been striving to achieve. The ship held a memorial service the following Sunday. But it also did bounce back.

As time had passed, Neil Rankin – Wings – had warmed to the task of making the most of Invincible and her assets. After the lengthy trials, she had finally got her own Sea Harrier squadron, No 801, with its commanding officer, Nigel ‘Sharkey’ Ward. He had flown supersonic Phantoms from the deck of the old Ark Royal. Now he was anxious to demonstrate the qualities and prove the capabilities of the Sea Harrier.

801 squadron had only five Sea Harriers aboard Invincible. But Rankin soon learned that the ship could do a lot in short bursts. Indeed, thanks to the heroics of the maintainers and the air crews, she was able to keep more aircraft in the air for longer than seemed reasonable. In that respect, she was embarrassing some of the American carriers and their squadrons. During one NATO exercise, she was able to keep an aircraft on combat air patrol continuously for five days.

One advantage that the Sea Harrier pilots had soon discovered was that the combination of Invincible’s Ski-jump ramp and the aircraft’s V/STOL characteristics meant that they could continue flying in conditions that would probably defeat even the biggest of conventional carriers.

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