HMS Prince of Wales was treated to a flypast from an F-18 jet flown by a Royal Navy Pilot, flying the British flag.

The UK Military & Defence Staff in US tweeted:

“Can you spot it? When Royal Navy pilot Lt Cdr Rory Cheyne flew this F18 past the UK’s largest warship, HMS Prince of Wales, he couldn’t resist making the all-American Super Hornet a wee bit British for the briefest of seconds, in tribute.

We use the word ‘interoperability’ a lot when we talk about the UK & US militaries, but this is it in stunning, in-your-face, side-by-side action. Cheyne’s been on exchange with US Navy in Virginia & on his penultimate flight before heading home to the UK, look what came into view!

On his left here, is his US wingman Lt John Kochanski. Cheyne said: ‘What a way to end an incredible 4 years with the US navy. Both of us looked down, saw the carrier and simultaneously said ‘amazing’. We work together in so many ways – but this is surely one of the coolest.”

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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84 COMMENTS

  1. A great little glimpse into what’s happening out there on the seas of the USA, the F18 is a fantastic aircraft, so the F35C has big boots to fill, God speed to all the crew, pilots etc of HMS Prince of Wales.

      • That’ll be an extra £3 billion refit mate. I’d rather keep F35B carrier and have 7 more type 31s. Or 4 more type 26s.

        • Plus 6 months to work a crew up for a deployment. Training cost for CATOBAR pilots are ridiculous. America can afford to piss hundreds of billions a year on giant nuclear powered aircraft carriers although I’m not sure if China is going to be bricking it against three squadrons of F18 showing up on them. No offence to the F18 it’s a perfectly fine aircraft but it was severely lacking in the 4th Gen world in air dominance. In the 5th Gen world it is increasingly a joke. It’s a reliable bomb truck with a great radar that the USN has held on to for too long primarily because of nostalgia and a lack of budget to replace it.

          Indeed it’s become the swordfish of the 21st century. America has spent a fortune to develop not one but two sea going versions of the worlds most capable aircraft then spent a very small proportion of its budget buying them. F35C numbers are tiny with zero export potential unlike F35B.

          In terms of capability, if you sent up three squadrons of F18 against 1 squadron of F35B you have a-lot of dead F18 pilots who probably never even saw the F35’s that shot them down.

          People should understand these numbers when they criticise the UK for having a single squadron of F35 on the carrier. Fact is not aircraft carrier in the world has carried more active F35 than the QE class and one squadron is enough to take anything else out.

          Once it gets Meteor and it’s new radar it will be the most deadly air to air platform on the planet bar none and that includes the F22.

          • The F-35B doesn’t have the endurance of the C or A. The US operates both types of carriers and considers that CATOBAR infinitely superior, so does everyone else who wants a carrier. The VTOL is a money thing, call it what it is.

          • You may not be aware of defence economics, money is a problem for everyone including Uncle Sam. If you can operate two F35B STOVL aircraft for the price of 1 F35C then the two F35B win out. STOVL is the superior solution. Range is rarely a factor given the ample tanker fleet and the near future deployment of AAR drones.

            For a though experiment think about any aircraft you see in sci fi. They all hover, none crack in to a ship as the cruising speed of a TGV to grab a wire with a hook.

            Arrested landing is dated and will be over taken by direct thrust solutions.

          • F-35A and C have 1240km combat radius vs F-35B’s 935km. You are right Chris about endurance, but does that make much of a difference?, particularly when AAR is available.

            Not everyone else who wants a carrier insists on CATOBAR. Many other nations operate STOVL carriers, so its not just we Brits who are being contrary.

            CATOBAR operations come with many disadvantages – pilot training time and costs, frequent pilot certification, higher equipment maintenance costs. Also surely you can only land one aircraft at a time with CATOBAR – that must affect the sortie rate.

          • Just going to point out that the combat radious of the F/A-18E/F with external drop tanks is 906km, and the F-35 doesn’t have external drop tanks yet, so

          • Yes there is this bizarre notion that the F35B has short legs…it does not, it’s comparable with any other navel fixed wing fighter.

          • But boy those cats get a lot more planes carrying a lot more fuel and ordinance into the air much quicker than the ski jump can hope to.

          • The are lots of arguments for VTOL..as pointed out trying to keep a trained air wing carrier qualified is very difficult for small carrier fleet ( as the French)…where as the RAF and RN can qualify any and all of its F35 squadrons on short notice if required.

            Also the VTOL carrier can operate in higher sea states…can continue air ops without worrying about catapult or arrestor gear failure ( a real problem for US carriers) and can recover and fly with a damaged flight deck.

            finally you have the F35B itself vertical landing and take off is a game changer for dispersal and if we are ever in a peer war as part of the deep war airfields are the first thing to get hit and hit again.

            Its not all just about the money..there is a real balance of good vs bad…but money is the final bit..if we had twice the money to pay for CATOBAR carriers, the money and time to train the air wings up on every deployment, the money for the new airframes to take advantage of CATBAR ect…

          • Also I understand that conventional aircraft require considerable speed over the wing to take off, some of which is generated by the carrier steaming into wind, but there may not be enough wind speed. The lack of relative wind speed was apparently the reason that the Argentine carrier did not launch any aircraft in the Falklands conflict, and so was useless.

          • I believe it’s 30knots of wind over the deck.this dictates a CATOBAR carriers course and speed for flight ops. It’s one of the reasons US carriers are nuclear.

            As you can image having to charge along at 20+ knots in a specific direction creates interesting operational challenges…it’s why in peace time it’s possible to play games with a carrier battle groups as to manoeuvre away from say a Russian sub contact or spy ship would impact on air ops.

            Also US aircraft carriers have to maintain constant flying ops every day to maintain carrier qualifications..as an example every pilot in the air wing has to do at least one night landing every 7 days during deployment even after carrier qualifications just to stay qualified during the deployment….maintaining a CATOBAR carrier air wing is brutally resource intensive.

          • Thanks Jonathan. Pretty much what I thought. Some will not accept there are downsides to CATOBAR, just as some think the only way to go for carrier propulsion is nuclear – I have a long list of disadvantages for nuclear and only one advantage (which is not really an advantage anyway).

          • It’s odd how divisive the whole carrier question is, most people simply will not see that going down the CATOBAR route would have been a bit of a disaster for the UK creating true white elephants..instead of the really cheap and flexible carriers that we now have…there is no other carrier force in the world that can move from amphibious assault, low intensity flying ops and training to very high intensity flying ops that would be close to a U.S. carrier sorty rate in a short time…

            Also if we had gone down the F35 with Emals cats we would now be sharing the USNs pain..the F35C is turning into the unloved step child of the F35family..the USN/USM have really struggled to get squadrons operational..last time I looked there were only 3 F35C squadrons vs 5F35B…they are also dropping the number of jets in each squadron to 10 with only one squadron per carrier..in their planning…as for Emals its still shutting down flying ops after on average every 600 or so launch…the target is over 16,000 launches before the catapult falls over and shuts down ops….it managed to do even worse on deploy in 2022 and could not even get to 450 launches before shutting down..as a U.S. carrier needs to do constant flying ops to keep its pilots qualified that’s a big operational issue before you even hit what they would do in a shooting war.

            “The Ford’s struggle to qualify pilots according to schedule is a serious matter, echoing throughout the fleet and, potentially, into the Ford’s own carrier air wing, Air Wing Eight.”

            basically if we had gone down the CATOBAR route we would not have likely had an operations squadron until this year ( if we were luckly) and a carrier that could not support more than 400-500 sorties before breaking.

          • “so does everyone else who wants a carrier”
            So the USA and China?
            Aside from the French every other carrier in use or construction is STOL/STOVL.

            That said with the rise of drones air combat is going to change more than we can predict so I think taking a view too centered around a single platform could be a mistake.

          • The f35 needs AWACS to be the ultimate slayer of previous gen aircraft, the ultimate stealthy killer with no emissions to give its presence away. Total domination. That makes the UKs lack of progress with a long term naval AWACS capability unfathomable, there’s just nothing in the horizon.

          • Hi mark every aircraft except the F35 needs AWACS mate, the F35 is an AWACS on its own and especially when operating in groups.

          • No, It needs and AWACS to relay targeting data. If the F-35 uses it’s own radar, enemy aircraft will detect it.

          • No that’s wrong the F35 AESA radar has a low probability of intercept. It can track a target without the target knowing.

            Working in group makes it even better because if can relay tracks between aircraft.

            AWACS is still useful for F35 because it can provide wider coverage however it’s no essential as it is for other aircraft.

          • Think that was more of a stop gap short term solution than a long term. Might be my memory failing though!

          • Normally a stop-gap solution is non-developmental ie COTS/MOTS. Crowsnest was developmental (an improved Searchwater 200) and it took some time for Thales to develop.

            Nothing I have read indicates it was an interim solution.

          • i do believe it was only due to be operational until 2030 with an out of service date of 2030..it was not an interim solution as it was full developed and procured, but it had a very short expected service life..basically because the Merlin 2s out of service date was 2030.

            Even though the Merlin 2 will now be in service until 2040 they are still keeping the planned out of service data of crowsnest at 2030 ( they have not announced an extension and I suspect they will wait to see what drone options pop up before any announcement )…but I suspect crowsnest will probably end up going out of service at the time Merlin 2 does, as this would make sense.

          • Thanks Jonathan. I misinterpreted your comment that Crowsnest was a short-term solution to mean an interim solution. Crowsnest had to be developed from Thales Searchwater 200 radar, wich took longer than most people expected, so it was not fuly devloped at the time of the order.

            Interesting that OOD is 2030 and you think it remains so, even after Merlin has left service, although, as you say, that may change. So it is fair to speculate on Crowsnest’s successor and its associated platform.

            The platform would either be Merlin’s replacement, a sizable drone or a tilt-rotor. Not sure if there would be further stretch potential in the current radar, so that could be a new-build.

          • Hi Marked, it was more limited by the out of service date of the Merlin 2, in 2030. So it was not an interim solution, but it basically had a short service life tied to the out of service date of Merlin…Merlin will now be flying until 2040 so we may see Crowsnest in service extended until then..depending on drone options and budgets.

        • I would be pressed to show any real increase in defence spending since Sunak/Hunt have been in charge. Can you? Unless the First Sea Lord can find a couple bill down the back of his sofa I think more ships or 35s bs or CS is fancifull thinking . Still good to dream as a certain football manager once said.

      • There has been a request from the MOD for CATOBAR systems. UKDefencejournal and Naval news have done articles. I can’t link because the format function have disappear under the text box.

          • Anything cheaper than the American system.
            I wonder what makes them so expensive and if cheaper options can be worked out?
            The weight requirements perhaps can make them cheaper.
            Dusting off the old arrester gear plans from previous carriers gives a starting point.

          • I can only imagine because EMALS is a new system and General Atomics is having an issue with spiralling development costs due to problems. I read that if the PANG project goes ahead, it would cost France $1.3 billion to buy from America. The RN project, Project Ark Royal, specifies what aircraft weights they want to launch. I suggest Navylookout and Naval News. Sadly, I don’t the project will go anywhere because of the costs.

            UKdefensejournal (Informtion from the MOD bid site)
            According to the Request for Information, the Ministry of Defence has set the following requirements.

            “Potential arrestor solutions ideally should offer:
            a. Max trap 47000lbs / 21318Kg
            b. Min trap 11000lbs / 5000Kg
            c. Energy damping method
            d. Potential for energy reclamation

            Potential catapult solutions ideally should offer the following:
            a. Max launch weight 55000lbs / 24949Kg
            b. Electrical power input required against launch cycle time.”

            Naval news article
            – QEC Aircraft Launch & Recovery Equipment
            STINGRAY, VIXEN (55m)
            VIXEN, VAMPIRE (15m)
            Requirement
            • Enables operation of high Uncrewed strike and support systems. Potential to enable operation of FW crewed aircraft (e.g. F/A-18E, F-35C, Rafale) Ramp launch to be demonstrated initially, with subsequent assessment once
            recovery systems are in place to enable full integration can be evidenced.

            Launch
            • Enables rapid deployment of FW assets held at Alert to conduct a range of missions. • Weight and cost implications of MIJAS minimised, reducing
            through-life capability cost.
            Recovery
            • Necessary for the operation of a wider range of crewed and uncrewed aircraft • Enables closer operation with allies and partners including alignment with the LJK/US
            SOI on carrier cooperation. VIXEN will depend on this for recovery to QEC.

          • The reason for the epic cost is in your first sentence, it’s general atomics. US defence contractors don’t get out of bed for much less than $10 billion, it’s a truly criminal enterprise.

          • The US offered to underwrite all developmental costs for the EMALS system had to UK bought it. Still said no. Epically dumb decision.

        • There’s nuance to this though.
          The MOD has asked for a CATOBAR system that can launch drones, and some people have expressed a hope that a future version in the 2030’s might be powerful enough to launch a manned figher.

          This isn’t the same as turning it into a non STOVL carrier.

  3. If the decision hadn’t been made very early on to make the new carriers STOVL, it could have been more than just ‘a wee bit British’, at least as a stop-gap solution.

    • It’s timing though isn’t it, it would have had to be EMALS to make sense and if that choice had been made there would have been greater expense and delays as proven in the US experience. There was a UK system in development for a bit but I don’t have any knowledge of it (sure others do) but doubt if the US struggled so much that the UK would have fared better. If the Carriers were built 5 years later probably matters would just about been different on balance.

      • For the UK system search on EMCAT and the test EMKIT system. There’s enough info to give an idea of how far along the project had reached before cancellation. The Think Defence piece from 2014 is quite good.

    • If it’s wasn’t STOVL it would not exist. CATOBAR is a total waste of money when you can make a 5th Gen aircraft hover. Thank god for Rolls Royce.

      There are plenty of British pilots operating in USMC F35 squadrons who could have also landed on the carrier.

      • Until you need more range. The F-35B is very limited. The QE or PoW would have to get far closer to any target than a CATOBAR carrier.

          • Well, the Chinese will find out very soon.

            The current Chinese carriers are pretty crap and the planes that they fly off them are very crap.

            Too many people fall for the idea that China excels at everything it does.

            Time will tell just how successful the Fujian (sp.) Will be as it apparently carries an awful lot of untried and untested tech, and needs new aircraft, that has given the USA years of headaches to date.

  4. Nice. Great for POW to finally be getting its F35 capabilities qualified. F18s such great aircraft.
    I hope curent events wake up the treasury to the need to have the capability to deploy both QE’s with significant F35 numbers aboard. At least 24 a piece, plus 30+ for RAF ops I’d say.
    Big shout out to USS CarneyDDG for taking out 3 cruise missiles & several drones over the northern Red sea heading for Israel from Houthi Yemen, reported on BBC News website today.

    • For me I think the fleet air arm fast jet squadrons need to be brought back for carriers with the raf playing back up.
      The problem with joint force harrier was the RAF did things differently from the FAA. RAF pilots, ground crew train to spend most of the time near family and on base. The FAA train to be at sea away for long periods. That alone causes issues.
      There were some interesting reports to parliament for SDR 2010 from both sides.

      • When I served on 800 NAS with Sea Harrier FA2’S. The deployment cycle wasn’t really very different from a RAF Harrier GR7 sqn. We did sea time and land based deployments. GR7 sqns spent more time in hot sandy places in the middle east. But the time away from home was pretty similar. Life at Yeovilton was pretty much the same as most RAF camps. It took the RAF boys some time to come around to the idea of going to sea. Some enjoyed it, others not so much. Plenty of FAA lads didn’t particularly like going to sea either 😄

      • The Navy should have its own F35s, not a joint force. Save money but cost lives in real conflict. When we need to deploy carriers we shouldn’t be hoping on a wing & a prayer that the RAF can spare enough & carrier air group pilots are best kept experts in carrier ops.

      • I still don’t get why the FAA don’t fly all the F-35s on a carrier.
        We don’t have the RAF flying half of the Apaches, or the army flying half of the Pumas and Chinooks.

  5. i know i’ve seen articles of USAF, RAF and RAAF all doing exchanges in their separate air arms, but I would love to hear an interview- like a USAF pilot flying TTyphoons in the RAF, I bet that would be so interesting to get that perspective. Does anyone know of any on youtube?

  6. Hi everyone,
    First post on here so be kind!
    Is it me or do the British Carriers have a new colour scheme? They seem a bit light blue compared to earlier ones.
    Thanks

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