Yeah, the RN screwed up their requirements such that the new UK carriers aren't actually going to be built for CATOBAR, even though they're supposed to be equip

Yeah, the RN screwed up their requirements such that the new UK carriers aren't actually going to be built for CATOBAR, even though they're supposed to be equipped for, but not with, the facilities to do so. You speak in the past tense but both are actually in the water now! One of them is working up for her first live deployment. I personally don't believe that CATOBAR was ever an option on these ships, there are too many clues. One is that both cats and traps are enormous pieces of machinery that need to be integrated with the hull and dissipate enormous amounts of heat, they can't be pasted in afterwards, they have to be designed in from the start. The catapults require steam or electrical power for EMALS, the QE class can't do steam and can't generate that much power. Operating cats and traps needs lots of deck crew, there aren't enough people without growing the RN by a few thousand people all told. And finally keeping pilots current for arrested landings isn't feasible if you want the freedom to embark RAF crews at short notice, who have only used runways. Basically BAe said they could do it as a tickbox exercise in the planning stages, but when the government looked at doing it and switching to F35C, it would have cost as much as rebuilding them both from scratch.