HMS Ark Royal (R09) Audacious Class Fleet Aircraft Carrier 1972. HMS Ark Royal (R09) was an Audacious-class aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy and, when she was decommissioned in 1979, was the Royal Navy's last remaining conventional catapult and arrested-landing aircraft carrier. Her sister ship, HMS Eagle, was the Royal Navy's first aircraft carrier to be equipped with an angled flight deck.