The Kings Flagship, HMS Queen Elizabeth, has sailed for trials ahead of a Carrier Strike Group deployment later this year.

The Royal Navy say here that “Carrier Strike offers Britain choice and flexibility on the global stage; it reassures our friends and allies and presents a powerful deterrent to would-be adversaries.

Protected by a ring of advanced ships, submarines and helicopters, and equipped with fifth generation fighters, HMS Queen Elizabeth is able to strike from the sea at a time and place of our choosing; and with our NATO allies at our side, we will be ready to fight and win in the most demanding circumstances.”

HMS Queen Elizabeth also announced on Twitter that the first female Flight Deck Officer (FDO) on a Queen Elizabeth (QE) Class carrier has overseen the landing of the first batch of aircraft in preparation for the upcoming deployment.

The tweet from the HMS Queen Elizabeth account stated:

“The first female FDO on a QE Class carrier has brought on the first of our aircraft as we make preparations to sail. Flying jets and helos, the next two weeks will prove our Carrier Strike capability as we prepare for our #CSG23 deployment.”

This historic milestone highlights the ongoing diversification in roles within the Royal Navy. Over the next two weeks, the female FDO will be responsible for coordinating the launching and landing of various aircrafts, including jets and helicopters, as part of the readiness training for the #CSG23 Carrier Strike Group deployment.

The importance of this event extends beyond the confines of the HMS Queen Elizabeth, demonstrating the Royal Navy’s commitment to gender equality and the growing role of women in traditionally male-dominated fields.

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
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61 COMMENTS

  2. Surely BAe have some F-35B mock ups to stick on the flight deck to give the crew something to do whilst they wait for the USMC.

    • Yaaaawn, no need, we have plenty to ensure training value to all concerned. To say otherwise is just wrong and troll like.

    • Things change, the old days weren’t always best Andy, no matter what our memories think. Just because the RN isn’t full of iron clads, big 15″ guns and gallons of rum, doesn’t make it worse. It makes it different, with different capabilities, facing different and changing challenges. However, I think we will both agree in an ideal world that politics and politicians need to stay out of military planning and procurement, but that isn’t ever going to happen, and it never has.

  3. The banner photo must be from the big 2021 deployment given the number of F35’s on deck!

    Sure it’ll be something like 8 embarked for the autumn deployment with maybe another USMC detachment to beef the air-group up.

    • We will I believe have 29 by the end of the year but pilot training has been slow and problematic. Additionally despite some improvement the F35 is still very technically demanding and expensive to operate.

      • Everything is slow when we talk about ANY of the British ARMED forces. We don’t exactly broadcast it much do we? Born in Blythe, made in the royal navy? That’s pathetic. When I was a kid, scribbling on my slat with a piece of chalk, the school was showing the old ark royal sailing film, and the warship programme with a Leander called h.m.s hero. We must learn to sell the career better than we do.

      • True Andy but the newly announced pay award has to come from existing budgets as no new money will be given to support it. I guess this means that the unfunded T32 has even less chance of actually being produced. Defence on a shoe string!

  4. My God the flight deck is empty, where’s the C17s, the Nimrods, lightnings, buccaneers (in the old days we had real carriers with 400 Buccaneers on all carrying 10000lb bombs) Why only such a small defensive armament, what the hell does the RN know about warships, weapons, tactics, where’s the offensive weaponry, 15″ guns, lasers, why only a type 45 and type 23 escort, in the old days we had hundreds of escorts all carrying the best weapons in the world, in fact the death star had more weapons, now that was a real carrier………… yaaaaaaaaaaawn!

    Just thought I would save some of the usual posters a bit of time in their oft repeated chuff. However in all seriousness, this platform does require a little more CIWS/missile defence (but I do understand why the RN and our SMEs on here disagree) and a better and longer ranges AEW platform. But we are at the moment where we are, and overall, an outstanding platform.

    • The UK invented how modern carriers work, yet it has none. Without cats and traps and a proper airwing, the RN carriers are little more then bigger “thru deck cruisers”. The RN should of had the E-2D, F-35C, all operated by the FAA, not the RAF. Two carries was over ambitious from the start. 1 nuclear carrier is what was required, working in sync with the French. The Merlin AEW and F-35B are too short on range compared to SuperHornets/F-35C and E-2D.

      • Nope, not what the RN thinks, and with all due respect, they will be the ones we consider, not a keyboard warrior with a history of negative and incorrect and ill informed posts. Cheers.

          • I struggle to see the advantages of having 2 massive carriers that have to get close to the shore.

          • Let’s see how the French get on with their one pang. Emals now hopefully reliable but now waiting on a 5 th gen carrier fighter. They use 2 Hawkeyes to America’ s 5 per carrier. Very expensive and exclusive to be in the cat n traps club. Agree we need crows nest replacement.

          • I agree lets polish up what we can afford and have two FAA squadrons of F35’s ASAP. I’d love a navalised ‘Fury’ version of the Tempest but highly improbable; although down the road it would have a market in the Indo-Pacific if we invested with partners.

          • Absolutely. I think in 10 years most ‘fixed wing’ attack a/c will be drones. Indications are these will have folding wings and be lighter than the F35’s. Because these are unmanned; I think the FAA will have a more complete handle on deployment on the carriers. Not to say there wont remain a closer joint force with the RAF than in the past, to their mutual benefit.

      • really so you want a nuclear carrier that like the french is only available 50% of the time?
        Also in a war what pros are there to nuclear? no refueling. Yet the jp jet fuel and weapons and food need replenishment anyway so the RFA will be needed. So you want to give up a carrier for no obvious gain. Im afraid I have heard very few naval experts that agree with you. What happens when it kicks off and our carrier is in for nuclear refueling?

      • Mate, you need to read through the decision history of the QE class carriers. Paying particular attention to why it was finally decided to go down the short take off and vertical landing (STOVL) route, rather than catapult assisted take-off but arrested recovery (CATOBAR).

        As a good example, look at the USN’s USS Ford. A $10B+ nuclear powered carrier. Which was the first to include an electromagnetic launch system (EMALS) and a revolutionary advanced arrested recovery system (AARS). This carrier cannot operate the F35C, it still has not been cleared for EMALS or AARS. The carrier has officially been in service since 2017.

        By the way, both EMALS and AARS were the systems chosen for the QE class, when CATOBAR was on the table. Imagine if both carriers went down that route. Where would we be today? We would have had to lease F18s or Rafales, to give us a fixed wing fighter capability, though Hawkeye would have been a bonus!

        However, the MoD decided on the STOVL route and the F35B. This meant that the carriers could be in-service a lot quicker. The aircraft are easier to operate from a carrier. Plus pilots are qualified significantly quicker. Giving the UK a very capable strike platform with a 5th gen aircraft.

        The future aspirations for the carriers, is to incorporate a catapult and arrestor system. Initially for large unmanned drones. But whose to say this won’t change in the future? The carriers by design have a very flexible layout. Which means an angled deck, catapult etc can all be included without massively changing the ship’s layout and structure.

        Rather than being a glass half empty type of person, why not join the glass half full club? It’s a lot sunnier on this side of the fence.

        • I think DaveyB is one of the last people you’d call “armchair” on this forum Andy. You’re having a go at the wrong poster.

          • No worries. No way was I allowing that to stand without a comment. Combat ops in Afghan and no doubt elsewhere, 1000 plus jumps ( I’m sure you said once ) and a SME here on aircraft, aerodynamics, missile performance, and much else.

            Armchair….nooo.

            Respect.

        • Never made it to Admiral, I wasn’t politically correct enough. Spoke my mind to much and I really can’t tolerate fools. Though I did go up from the ranks and got a nice pair of brown shoes if that helps!

    • I hope you feel better for that, sometimes it’s best to just express your inner Karma 🤣

      IMHO it needs a lot of things like CAMMS, more F35B, AW101 and Sistership that works.

      But in reality and along with every other thing we moan about on this site, we are all overlooking the fundamental truth and everything else is irrelevant.

      Like all of our issues it all boils down to just 2 simple little things.

      It needs a Government that is fully committed to properly funding Defence and a Civil Service that can actually manage to competently spend that funding.

      And then it all works and Yoda arrives to get Luke X wing back.

      Simplez Iz

    • I agree 5 more T31’s as well. RAF 3 f35 Squadrons, Navy 5 f35 Squadrons and one training Squadron. Upgun the OPVs.

  7. The RN is working hard to regenerate its carrier capability. From a (nearly) clean sheet start 10 tens after all our naval fixed wing air capability was scrapped the RN has brought in to service two world class carriers, with the RAF and RN bringing a 5th generation combat aircraft into service as well. That is two hugely complex inter-related projects being brought forward to provide a global capability, as proven by the CSG21 deployment.

    No other second tier power as achived that. Yes there is still a lot of development work to do and both the RN and RAF are working to close the gaps especially around autonomous vehicles.

    Rome wasn’t built in a day.

    Well done to the RN and RAF.

    Cheers CR

      • I remember a labour government in the 1960s abandoning our dependence on aircraft carriers it’s good to see that once again with have the capability to defend our country against foreign aggressors my father said in 1964 that abandoning the aircraft carrier we would regret it in the future he was right . The Falklands proved that in 1982 . Had we had an aircraft carrier like the Queen Elizabeth we would have destroyed the enemy and saved lives .I am dreading a Labour government taking office and once again reducing our aircraft carriers capability to negative we cannot depend on our american freinds to be our crutch we must defend ourselves unless under labour any slight pressure eg putin we cave in
        I’m very proud of our service personel which have always proved to be able to punch above their weight God bless em

        • Me too. Maybe things won’t be as bad as previous incarnations. I doubt it, sadly. As I have said before, I will be here looking for all the Labour supporters with short memories as niche capabilities ( which we excel at ) are thrown away for a few thousand more army personnel which, strategically, make no difference at all, where the loss of ships, carriers, amphibs, jets, ISTAR, whatever, do.

      • Thanks Daniele.

        Sadly, too few people seem to understand how complicated these things are. When I was still ‘in the business’ a colleague of mine was working on sortie generation modelling for the QEC. The computer model he built had to consider how the aircraft were moved around the ship from flight deck to hangar, around the flight deck, through the launch cycle, landing back on and taxiing out of the way, etc. throw in different aircraft types (helicopers etc) and different turn around times and there are a lot of variables to deal with. STOVL definately achieved the highest sortie rate…

        He spent weeks building the model and running various senarios and that was just to generate evidence to determine one design / decision variable!

        Complicated products such as the QEC or F35 require so many people to do the work that it rapidly becomes impossible for any one person to understand everything there is to know about the project – and that makes them complex.

        To clarify, complicated is something that is deterministic e.g. a complicated mechanism such as a steam engine, power it up and it will always do the same thing – unless it brakes, of course 🙂 .

        A complex system is indetermant. In otherwords it is either self adapting to new conditions or you do not know enough about it to determine what is going on. Big complicated engineering programmes can be said to be complex because they are too big for any one person to fully understand or they are self adapting.

        The design and build process for the QEC could be said to be self adapting as different people would have come up with different solutions to problems across the project. There really are differences in the two ships as the Prince of Wales has greater emphasis on amphibious operations, etc. Also, remember that missaligned propshaft on the Prince of Wales, I bet they tried really hard to make sure it was aligned correctly but something went astray – no one would have forcast that issue until motors were spun up. However, once the issue became evident I would have put it right straight away as I tend to get nervous around unexplained noises in machinary always a sign of something not quite right. Not a good place to be when there is up to 54,000hp per shaft available.

        Nevertheless, add in a bunch of complex airframes to the big complex ships and the fact that anything works at all is pretty damn impressive… Personally, I’m pretty proud that as a nation we have pulled all of the various threads together and made it work even if there is still some way to go.

        Cheers CR
        Sorry went on a bit there…

          • That’s very kind of you mate, although I’m not sure about the ‘expert’ bit as I was a bit of a generalist i.e. did lots of different stuff hopefully well enough to help different groups of experts get it together. If only on a very small scale in a very big machine.

            I’d also point out that your knowledge about the Army’s force structure and capabilities always impresses me.

            Respect right back to yer, mate 🙂

            Cheers CR

        • It would be interesting to see how his model is adapted to include the use of large drones that are catapult launched and use an arrested landing?

          I imagine sortie generation will actually go down. As you have to maneuver the drone in place, attach to the shoe etc. which then slows down launching aircraft from the ramp. Unless the two operations can be done in parallel. Which I guess will be determined by where the catapult is located in the deck.

      • Wiki says, “On 15 May 2023 the Secretary of State for Defence denied that she was being cannibalised and mothballed and said that she would be in full service by the autumn (of 2023).”

        So if that’s still on track we’re close to her being back in service.

        • It would be interesting to know the scale of the realigning of the shafts and how much cut and shut has been involved. We may find out in a year or two but I’m still amazed with laser tech they didn’t sort this during her build.

      • I read somewhere recently that she will be rejoining the fleet this Autumn. I understand they took the opportunity to do quite a bit of work and inspection that was due in the near future e.g. a Lloyds hull inspection I think, plus other stuff (I think they also took the opportunity to have a good look at the other shaft as well…). Kept her in dry dock longer than was really necessary just for the repairs to the shaft but avoided another expensive docking in the near future (I believe that each emptying and refill cycle has a cost associated with it, a significant one at that).

        Hopefully, she will be able to stay operational for the next few years with no more mishaps.

        I’m actually quite impressed that the MoD, RN and contractors were able to rapidly reschedule so many people and resources to make the best of a bad situation. Been quite awhile since the UK had a big Naval asset requiring so much effort. A lot of stuff as had to be relearnt and I think they have done a pretty good job actually.

        Cheers CR

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