Ark Royal received investment and repeated political attention, yet the government still retired her with promises that capability would return later. By 2010 her mixed group included four Harriers, seven anti-submarine Merlins, and three Sea King airborne-early-warning aircraft. Sea King airframes still carried the airborne-early-warning system because it had not yet migrated to Merlin. Operations over Libya soon provided another mission for which organic naval aviation would have been useful. This episode fits a recurring defence-policy pattern in which future procurement is used to justify accepting a present operational gap.
Chapter · 1:38:50-1:41:27
Carrier cuts exchanged immediate readiness for promised future capability
Retiring Ark Royal removed deployable air power before replacements arrived, while later operations quickly demonstrated the value of the missing capability.