Centaur-class aircraft carrier

The Centaur class was the last development of the British 1942 Design Light Fleet Carrier, drawn up in 1943 so that the Royal Navy could operate heavier, faster aircraft than the preceding Majestic class could handle. Eight ships were ordered, but only four were laid down in 1944 and 1945, and they were completed between 1953 and 1959, by which time carrier technology had moved on and the ships ended up with different fits: Albion and Bulwark were finished with interim angled decks and later became helicopter assault ships, and only Hermes was fully modernised for fixed-wing jets. Harland and Wolff at Belfast built the lead ship Centaur, completed in 1953 and the only one to the original design, and Bulwark. Hermes later served in the Falklands War and then, as INS Viraat, in the Indian Navy until 2017.