How option framing shaped the Invincible class

How large could Invincible have become before the design was too difficult to disguise politically?

A carrier about 160 feet longer is imagined as the compromise within a different menu of designs, without establishing that ministers would have approved it.

Clarke says the government selected the second-smallest of five Invincible design options. He imagines omitting the two smallest proposals and adding a larger option at the other end. If ministers still selected a compromise position, he argues, the resulting carrier could have been about 160 feet longer. That is a hypothetical way of presenting the choices, without a demonstration that ministers would have accepted the larger ship. He connects the argument to a preference for fewer small alternatives and for announcing ship names early enough to make cancellation politically awkward.