An F-35B has performed a shipborne rolling vertical landing on-board HMS Queen Elizabeth as jets join the vessel for an upcoming exercise.

HMS Queen Elizabeth is currently on trials before deployment, part of that involves conducting exercises with all types of carrier-capable aircraft. The Ministry of Defence say that HMS Queen Elizabeth’s Carrier Strike Group’s capabilities will be on show during Exercise ‘Strike Warrior’, which will take place off the coast of Scotland in May.

The UK-led war-fighting exercise, including several other NATO navies, will be the final test for the Carrier Strike Group before it undertakes its maiden deployment, you can read about that deployment here.

Below is the view the pilot would have had, the footage is from 2018 and shows a previous.

 

What is shipborne rolling vertical landing?

Shipborne Rolling Vertical Landing (SRVL) is a capability that allows pilots to return to ship with more stores.

British test pilot Peter Wilson made history recently when he conducted the first ever shipborne rolling vertical landing. The Royal Navy say that previously the jets have conducted only vertical landings, hovering by the side of the ship before moving sideways over the deck and gently lowering down.

There’s a video of the first SRVL on HMS Queen Elizabeth here.

A rolling landing however requires the jet to make a more conventional landing approach, approaching the ship from behind at speed, before using thrust from its nozzle and lift created by air over the wings to touch down and gently come to a stop.

It is a process designed to land jump-jet aircraft that uses both the vertical thrust from the jet engine and lift from the wings, thus maximising the payload an aircraft can return with and stopping the financial waste that comes with dropping expensive weaponry in the sea in order to land vertically. It can also reduce the level of wear on the lift engines and extend their operational life. Similarly, it can reduce the amount of wear upon the deck surface of a carrier caused by the downward jet exhaust from vertical landings.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
Twitter

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

46 COMMENTS

  1. The most important benefit of the huge deck size of the QE class. Presumably SRVL mainly to be used when hot weather conditions have an adverse effect on engine performance in vertical mode- just as with Harrier.

    • I think it also means the plane can land carrying more stores/fuel than would be normal for a post op landing.

      • Yes. Allow to carry heavier munitions without having to drop them in the sea if they cannot fire them in anger.

        A saw the test attempts on TV quite a few months ago. It was far more difficult than I had expected. Lots of attempts before doing it, and that with a crack test pilot. So quite a relief really to see them trying it again. I am wondering if instruments have been developed now to make it more useful. But this rolling landing is I believe vitally important

        • I think carrier RVL capability has been written into the control laws of flight control system already.

          It just needs to be carefully test pilot de – risked and proven with various loads / sea states etc.

          It’s one thing doing this in the Simulator or on a runway, but it’s hard to replicate the pitching deck and wind shear of an aircraft carrier in heavy seas.

          If we do end up fitting cats and traps to the QE class, then the new angled deck extension needed, will clearly be very useful for F35B RVL’s.

          • This may be true, although I’m by no means certain of any of that.

            But the tests were on the TV documentary, and it was at sea and it took a great many attempts for the test pilot to do it. And without munitions as I recall.

            I’m very keen to see this technique become the norm, but I am interested to know if ship board instruments are used.

          • It is normal to try something new one step at a time which was what was done. Try step one a few times move onto step two and try that a few times.

            Try a few variations at each step to get an idea of wind over deck effects and how the superstructure affects them.

            My take on it was that it was a professional approach to paramterise the landing process.

          • Yes I follow that.

            My point is that it was not an easy process and I now wonder if instruments are now available to assist the process.

          • Yes, they are.

            I suspect they existed for the first attempt but that man-in-loop was decreed to scope it out.

            I’m not sure how much the Bedford array is really needed given the level of automation on an F35b.

        • I think one of the advantages of F35 over Harrier was its much larger bring back load in vertical landing. Crucial to the USMC who can’t use SRVL. I guess that VL will be the norm unless very hot weather conditions dictate others.
          It does look a tricky exercise, even compared with conventional barrier arrest.

    • You would hope this becomes the “norm” rather than exception for the benefits outlined above. At the relative speed executed is it that more dangerous/difficult that a vertical landing especially with the “Bedford Array” lights installed and automation?

  2. I hope the irony of the headline is not lost on the readers…(aircraft lands on aircraft carrier shocker etc etc)

    • Well to be honest, It’s not bad to have one landing…… might not have any more soon, by all accounts…… Can’t wait for the review……. Can I be the first China man to bid on POW as a future Floating Hotel/Casino ?

      • Both carriers will remain in service so one carrier is available 365 day’s a year. Unlike the French, with 1 carrier and 40 Rafale M’s.

  3. I don’t understand the tenor of this article. Are they landing via SRVL? Is that why there’s a couple of paragraphs on how it works? I thought that wasn’t meant to happen for the time being, and HMS Prince of Wales (when repaired) was to do the third bout of testing (DT-3) off the Virginia coast?

  4. There are still issues with the heat pad wear coat in its wearing rate, hence the tented village on deck why in dock,

    its wearing rate and breakdown is not where if a long campaign a F35 Will burn a hole clean thru the steel.

    • Well not for take off; unless purely vertical.

      And not for SVRL. Might need some under deck water cooling as well.

      Alternatively it might actually be an ablative coating that is designed to vaporize sways as a means of dissipating the heat.

    • OK everyone will say the F35B but somehow I’m not so sure in a dog-fight. I just need to make clear my understanding of dog fight, up close and personal, if it was army terms its fix bayonet time.
      So at range the F35B wins, dogfight the only advantage the F35B has is speed, the advanced electronics might help but not much the FA2 can pull more Gs and has some manouvering tricks up its sleeve that the F35B could not match. The FA2 has twin Aden cannon the RAF/FAA F35B has no gun pod as yet. So overall I would not suggest that a F35B gets into a dogfight with a FA2 Harrier, it might find itself in all forms of trouble. It would be a good test though.

      • While both Aircraft suffer compromises due to the STOVL Requirements, 40+ years of Airframe Development and a much more Powerful Jet Engine gives the F35b a significant Advantage even in WVR Combat. Even against F16’s they have proved to be no Slouches.

      • FA2 wasn’t that great a dogfighter, the GR7/9 with LERX were far superior. F-35B would eat a SHAR for breakfast….in every part of the envelope.

        And the manoeuvering tricks that you talk of (VIFFING) were never used in combat or trained for as it had little real world utility.

  7. There are huge advantages all round for the standardisation of this technique. Two questions for you boffins-could part/all of this process be autopiloted? Second-could traps only be fitted to the QE’2s? The main cost by far,as I understand it is in the cats. If there were traps then the F35 could land conventionally. Also the VSTOL ‘B’ has the ability to reduce its approach speed to far lower than a conventional aircraft so a trap in this instance would not need to be constructed to cope with the stresses of high speed landings?
    Flat Top Boffins?

  8. According to Sharkey Ward’s book Sea Harrier over the Falklands, early trials on HMS Ark Royal of the P1127 included rolling landings.

  9. I have to say that I think overall the RN and UK industry have done a fantastic job with the carriers.

    without government interfering these would have come in around £1-2 bn cheaper which would be a stunning achievement. Even set against a Wasp class carrier it is exceptional value for money at £3.6bn per vessel.

    The one thing I hope the review does resolve once and for all, is the pace of build, the RN/RFA has a requirement to build 3 significant vessels per annum and 100 lesser vessels and I believe this can be accommodated over 4 or 5 sites.

    14 no. Subs – (increase SSN fleet long term)
    25 no. Global Combat Ships (>125m)
    25 no. Multi Mission Ships (<125m)
    15 no. Large Support and Amphibs (Aegir hull form)
    2500 no. Enabling systems, tugs and workboats (all other assets)

    The above is inline with current published numbers for the RN, but is below the RN/RFA totalled a totally different mix, whilst offering potential for improved capability.

    By just speeding up the build process, committing to orders and assigning the budget we all know has to be spent anyway, the MOD will save money and our troops will get better kit, faster and at lower cost.

    so for all the fancy statements that will come out of the ISR, fundamentally we need to get the drumbeat and tempo right to get the cost down and invest in some of our much neglected shipbuilding communities.

  10. something must be happening in the north east of England, for the last week i have seen a constant flow of apache and chinook helicopters heading from what could be RAF Leeming going north, during the morning, but then returning late at night early hours of the morning, neighbours were complaining about the noise but i told them it,s nice to see them out and about rather than sitting around doing nothing, not sure if this has anything to with HMSQE but could have been part of something….

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here