How long a CVA-01 fleet might have served

Would CVA-01 have led to a carrier lineage very different from the present fleet?

Yes. With 40- to 50-year lives, staggered CVA-01s could have served into the 2010s or 2020s, making their replacements broadly contemporary with today's carrier generation.

The counterfactual assumes staggered CVA-01 commissioning dates in the 1970s and around 1981. With service lives of roughly forty to fifty years, the earliest ship might retire in the 2010s while the last could remain useful into the 2020s. Britain would therefore be planning their successors around the present era rather than having rebuilt carrier aviation after a long break. The calculation also illustrates how the lifetime value of a capital ship depends on decades of service, modernization, and fleet succession rather than only its initial purchase price.