When the Royal Navy was looking to upgrade it’s carrier borne interceptor from the Sea Vixen, the F-4 was the only game in town.
Crossdecking ops with USN F-4s tho had shown that the Phantom was barely marginal in flying from the RNs smaller carriers. Ark Royal was, in available deck space, slightly bigger than an Essex, and considerably smaller than a Midway.
Variable geometry was one way of aleviating this. But the Brits were already shelling out major cash to put the home-built Spey engine into the Phantom. So they went for an easier and quicker alternative: add a second oleo to the nose gear to lift the nose further/increase angle of attack on launch (preserving the ability to launch with more than a basic air to air fit) and accept that getting down to recovery weight would mean jettisoning any air to ground ordinance carried before trapping.
...and considerably smaller than a Midway.
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I served on the FDR, a sister ship to the Midway and Coral Sea. Flight deck was over 900 ft., but the cat shot was only 180 ft. Four AG wires probably were about 400 ft. of deck (just a guess, as I was in Cats).
There was also an F-4L on the drawing board that was supposed to be able to operate from the light carriers. I suspect that such a design would have been limited to an air to air load out.
It would have been interesting to see a Buccaneer operate from an Essex class. Some would debate that the Buccaneer was a better airframe than the Intruder.