Air-group capacity depends on deck arrangement

The class moved from roughly sixty aircraft in 1960 to around ninety by 1970, with 1981 figures given as about eighty-six to ninety-two. These groups included large aircraft such as the RA-5C Vigilante. The first two ships, adapted from an axial-deck design, differed slightly in usable space and aircraft totals from the later two designed around angled decks. Published flight-deck dimensions disagree, so extreme width figures deserve caution. Four steam catapults and four deck-edge elevators offered impressive capacity, though operating every catapult meant losing use of one elevator. The resulting air groups supplied fleet air defence, strike, reconnaissance, anti-submarine warfare, and carrier-onboard-delivery capability.