They have two now and a third of the same class under construction. They’re all ski-jump carriers, they’re laying down the first of a new class of CATOBAR (aka ‘conventional’) carriers now with more to follow.
Someone was whining to me about the ramps, and said it decreased lift.
I said then why do they do it? on short runway?
I can get a plane up, you hit the throttle, you hit the flaps.
Now I have been on such short runways but not at the controls.
I think they use the ramps for landing to slow them down, but fail to see how it could not assist in takeoff.
It takes us nine years to build one carrier - and there’s only one shipyard that can do it.
Compare that to 1942-43, when we built and launched almost 100 carriers of various types.