Could the Saunders-Roe jet fighter have gone to sea?

Would the Saunders-Roe SR.A/1 have been too large to serve as a ship-carried aircraft?

Not necessarily; it was theoretically possible with contemporary concepts, but naval aviation did not continue down that 1950s water-based path.

By the time the Saunders-Roe SR.A/1 appeared, ships and catapult concepts under study could theoretically accommodate a larger aircraft. It was a plausible reconnaissance or fighter option for cruisers in an alternative 1950s development path. The obstacle was less the single aircraft's size than the fact that naval aviation moved away from water-based fixed-wing machines. Helicopters and conventional carrier aircraft closed off a technological branch that remained physically possible.