An F-35 jet will take off from HMS Queen Elizabeth, currently alongside in Portsmouth, today at 12:30pm. There will also be a live stream of the event.

The Twitter account for HMS Queen Elizabeth confirmed the news earlier today.

Regarding the live stream, the carrier tweeted:

It is understood that the jet remained onboard, rather than flying home with other British aircraft, due to a technical fault.

Normally, fixed wing aircraft would not be onboard an aircraft carrier while the vessel is in its home port.

HMS Queen Elizabeth departed Portsmouth on August the 30th to conduct flight operations with six British F-35B Lightning fighter jets and a number of American aircraft off the United States coast.

The carrier returned home on the 4th of December.

HMS Prince of Wales, the second of the Queen Elizabeth class of aircraft carriers, recently entered Portsmouth for the first time. The builders of the carriers said at the time that the ship’s arrival into Portsmouth represents the culmination of 16 years of work by the ACA – a unique relationship between BAE Systems, Babcock, Thales, and the UK Ministry of Defence.

More than 10,000 people across the UK have been involved in the programme to deliver the Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers, with six British shipbuilding yards across the country playing a vital role in the ships’ design and construction.

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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76 COMMENTS

  2. In other news… Dom Cummings has said that MoD needs to overhaul is procurement processes to stop waste and (as I believe he had said) “corruption”.

      • Hi George. Is the “Other News” likely to be picked up by UKDJ in due course as I would be interested in people’s opinions? Thanks

      • Although in all fairness Cummings ‘fire’ has been aimed at QEC and rather sadly seems to have been heavily influenced by the Max Hastings school of unthinking ‘thought’.

        • I agree, and the comments attributed to Cummings date I believe back to before the ship was launched. I do believe that Hastings is a flawed historian.
          The key strategic policy we should examine is whether we should embark on a principal maritime strategy. I do not here try to suggest one or the other, other than say that at the
          moment we are defacto heading towards one.

    • And in that same story it was made clear that he has a dim view of the carrier programme, instead favouring low budget swarming-drone development and cyber warfare. Really worried now about the upcoming SDSR, could see large scale cuts and reorientation

      • There is a legitimate objective view that says carriers are out of date. I am not saying one way or the other. For instance, swarming drones have yet to be tested. Equally, more but smaller carriers might be the option, or we ought to have 3 large carriers.
        But there is a case to say that we do not get value for money for our defence budget.

        • Hi Trevor – during the first world war tanks had yet to be tested – we were still focused on horses. That said the carriers still have their place but we need to focus more on the cheap and cheerful swarming weapons and defences against such weapons.

        • And how does one suppose we get said drones to wherever they’re fighting? Say, perhaps, the Falklands or the South China Sea?

          Carriers are far from obsolete, and while the QEC could use some more defensive armaments, as long as there’s a T45 or two nearby, they should be pretty well protected from the hypersonic weapons usually given as the reason they’re obsolete.

          • I agree with that. And our carriers may be the right size. But irrespective of what our grand strategy ought to be, we ought to ensure that our procurement ought to be efficient and value for money.

      • In some respects he’s right.

        I read it differently. I see it as drones and cyber tech alongside existing capabilities, not wholesale cuts.

        I find some of the article somewhat naïve. The boy in the bedroom with his laptop and small drone is not sinking the QEC. He has to find it first, then get his small drone to fly perhaps thousands of miles into the Ocean to find it.

        Likewise this drone swarm needs conventional forces to enable it. Or are they taking off from Marham and flying to Russia unaided, unrefuelled, over massive range. If that is possible why indeed are we wasting money on F35.

        There are always cuts in defence reviews sadly. They should be balanced with sensible increases elsewhere, and that is what has been missing from previous reviews.

        Studying procurement practises is one thing, telling the military their business in how warfare is fought is quite another.

        But as usual, from cut carriers to the army of 70,000 to no amphibs, none of which have come to pass, it is all speculation.

        • Americans are really getting scared of increased drone recon ability of China and the effect it will have on their carrier operations within aircraft range of the Chinese Mainland. They are giving serious thought to changing tack and going for smaller carriers and changing the fleet formation of carrier battle groups from a close formation with picket ships around the perimeter to a fully dispersed formation and no bunching around the carrier.

          • We have what we have in the RN. I suspect that the plan would be to sweep away the procurement criteria which inevitably leads to a handful of companies. We are looking for innovative designs by small companies with other companies maybe building the product, a third testing and so on. We could get very good prices per unit on the basis we bought in bulk. Sometimes it is good to burn the rule book and start again.

          • Drones operating out of sight of land will need to be controlled either by satellite, ship or a “mother” aircraft. This makes it very susceptible to jamming, hacking or EMI attacks. Operating from a ship it will still need to be in line of sight, so its overall range will be compromised. being controlled from another aircraft is the best compromise, if the satellite is unavailable.

            However, unlike the simple off the shelf drones that caused havoc at Gatwick, the level of self-control a military drone has is a lot higher. Generally when a controlling signal is lost the aircraft will either fly back to base, pre-set location or fly in a circle until the communications is restored. Satellite communications in general use the same frequency bands as military surveillance radar i.e. 1GHz to 40GHz. However, much like GPS frequencies, military satellite data-links are usually fixed and well published such as the Ku-band downlink at 10.7 GHz to 12.75 GHz used by the Astra satellites. This makes it easier to target specific frequencies for narrowband white noise jamming. Put simply, it’s a basic waveform transmitted at the same frequency but at much higher power than the satellite is transmitting. But also due to the height of the satellite the actual received power is very low, so an aircraft operating 100km from the drone transmitting on the same frequency will saturate the drones receiver, making it loose satellite reception.

            I’m not saying this is possible, but, the Sampson radar of a Type 45 destroyer is an active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar. This is different to “normal” radars, where the transmit and receive elements are contained within a single module, built within the antenna. The antenna can contain over a thousand of these individual modules. This means there’s no complicated waveguides, along with their associated losses. Meaning the maximum amount of power is generated per transmitted waveform. Also the transmitted beam can now be aimed electronically by using phase delay. Phase delay is where one module transmits, then the next corresponding module transmits at -x time, by doing this it pushes the transmitted beam in a programmed direction. The other knock on effect of phase steering is that you generate much smaller side-lobes. Basically side-lobes are a natural phenomenon of the antenna design, which requires active suppression to minimise. The side-lobes are wasted energy and radiate away from the main beam’s direction. So in effect with an AESA radar we have now created a highly controlled and tight searchlight like beam containing the majority of the transmitted power, that reaches out further than a “normal” radar’s beam

            When a radar waveform hits a target, rather than just be simply reflected, like light reflecting off a mirror, there is a form of material interaction. This is highly dependent on the target’s construction, material and shape. For an aircraft with a metal skin and structure containing dissimilar metals. The structure will partially absorb the electromagnetic wave due to the antenna effect, but also be re-transmitted due to structural mode scattering. For an aircraft with a composite skin, which for many frequencies will appear translucent, the aircraft’s internal structure and components will be the reflectors/absorbers.

            This is where the radar’s power comes into play. Most systems will have a modicum of electromagnetic interference shielding. However, as the induced current ramps up these can become saturated allowing the induced current to pass through. Modern surface mounted components and integrated circuits are generally designed to work with voltages below 5V and less than 100mill-amps. When a high power radar induces current into these components it can be in the tens of volts and a couple of amps. This is enough to either swamp the components i.e. switching it off/on etc or simply destroy it. For a drone that uses radar as its primary sensor, it will need a composite dome to protect the antenna. This is the weak point where an electromagnetic attack can be used against it. If the radar is sufficiently powerful enough and at the correct frequency, the drone can be disabled. A very good example of this issue was the downing of a Tornado flying low level too close to a HF radio mast. The transmitter swamped the aircraft’s systems and turned off the engines ECUs, causing the aircraft to crash and the crew to eject. A similar incident occurred during the initial trials of the T45 off Portland. This is where a Lynx was illuminated flying nearby, again causing the engines ECUs to intermittently turn off and on, causing the aircraft to loose height a couple of seconds after exiting the beam.

            The F18 Growler, is a dedicated electronic warfare aircraft. It will be getting the new advanced jammer. The jammer uses digital radio frequency memory transmit/receiver (DRFM) technology. The DRFM system will record the exact frequency and waveform of a radio or radar and then re-transmit it either with a slight time delay or with other techniques to alter the transmitter’s received signal. Thus making the operator believe there is no aircraft, multiple aircraft or the aircraft in a different direction etc. To do this the jammer needs to be very powerful as you need to maximise your jammer range before the threat transmitter “burns through” the spoofing. The advanced jammer is supposed to use beam steering to target specific radar threats etc, this means it will be using an AESA style array, thus having the benefits that this design brings. I will fully expect the Growler to be used for anti-drone electromagnetic attacks.

      • I think there is an argument to be made for a proper SDSR due to the pace of change in technology. I think the UK is behind the curve or at least on development of unmanned platforms for both land and sea. With Ajax and Boxer digitally networked, I’d expected them to be able to integrate with future drones relatively easy, they will be a necessity going forward. I fear the UK will try to gold plate them which means years of delay and too few to be effective.

    • And Max Hastings wrote a very interesting article into the QE carriers and what could happen in a full defence review in today’s Times……not happy reading But backed with logic.

        • Bravo Sir Humphrey.

          A quite brilliant article and demolition of the naysayers and doom merchants.

          And this –

          “The UK is one of a handful of countries that enjoys a truly global outlook. Possessing huge diplomatic reach with one of the largest networks of embassies and High Commissions out there, coupled with extensive trade and global soft power access, British influence and credibility is far higher than some defeatists would like to admit.”

          Hear Hear! We are all doomed of course.

      • Cant find any reference to it on the Times website (if its there its well hidden) which perhaps says something about how important Defence is taken sadly.

        • Comments are supposed to be in the Times and picked up in Mail. However certainly the Carrier issue was first raised by him sometime earlier, and not in the aftermath of the election, according to the Mail. The point I picked up was the suggestion of corruption as well as incompetence in procurement. Channelling his inner Trump no doubt.

          • Is he the Max Hastings who was on Hermes with the Task Force in 82?

            ” I counted them all out and counted them all back”

            You’d think he would understand the flexibility and utility of Carriers.

          • The one and only Max. Competent historian that I have a good deal of respect for.
            It was Brian Hanrahan that counted them all out….sadly he died some time back!

          • Not sure about that, but I do remember the press getting told off for broadcasting the fact that the Argentinian bombs fusing wasn’t correct. Though, in fairness, I expect that many returning pilots would have noticed that their bombs weren’t exploding!

          • They did, and quite rightly. Lets help Argentina sink our ships when so many of their bombs were impacting but not detonating.

            I’m not sure if the pilots would be aware of that while flying for their lives, being shot down, or avoiding hitting the hills surrounding San Carlos while evading Blowpipe, Sea Cat, AA fire, and Rapier missiles.

            You could add the announcement by the BBC that there was to be an imminent attack on Goose Green, before 2 Para went in.

            Or the Labour MP Ted Rowlands revealing to the Commons that GCHQ was reading Argentine diplomatic messages. Bless!

            I Forget the books name, its softback and has a Sea Harrier launching from the Ski Jump.

          • Got to say those Argie boys flying the into the storm of San Carlos had serious sets of balls! Put a skilled and speed crazy South American in a decent fast jet and your in trouble! Respect for those lads, we were lucky, for various reasons, badly fused bombs were one. Total respect for a skilled and uniformed enemy, who adheres to the rules of war!

          • They took heavy losses, so did the RN.
            I remember the footage of the Skyhawks coming in low, with seconds to drop their bombs, attracting a hail of AA. The famous photo showed one passing next to either Fearless or Intrepid.

          • I thought the ‘Bomb fusing’ fiasco was actually reported on BBC World service – I may be wrong though.

          • Hi Daniele,

            Brian Hanrahan and Robert Fox BBC and ITV respectively I seem to remember.

            “I counted them all out and I counted them all back,” was a really special thing to say. I remember thinking at the time that must have reassured the families back home as that first mission report was in the early stages of the hot conflict if I remember rightly.

          • That’s the one, thanks CR.

            “I Counted Them All Out and I Counted Them All Back: Battle for the Falklands. 1 Aug 1982. by Brian Hanrahan and Professor Robert Fox”

            Indeed, those immortal words are iconic, even for me a mere 10 year old at the time.

        • It’s the weekend essay in comments, may have been Sunday Times.

          Sorry I read the digital editions and they are constantly being updated on the app so not always clear

    • It will be interesting to see if Warrior gets scrapped and replaced with an additional order of boxers vehicles.
      C2 life extension might be at risk too if its cheaper just to order new L2 A7’s.
      Hopefully the government will not mess about with T26 orders.
      There is no point in the government complaining about the carriers when labour locked that deal in, the R2 fiasco could have been avoided by better government planning.

  3. I live a couple miles away and it was very loud!! Guess it is another tick in the box – launching an F-35B whilst still alongside.

  6. HMG have previous for cuts in a defence review excused by new technology.

    In the 1995 “Front Line First”, they excused cuts to the front line by emphasising development of stand off weaponry, Meteor, TLAM, and Hellfire. Meteor over 20 years later has barely entered service.

    • Allan Mckenzie Cummings is a very powerful man. Unelected, of course, such is the way of the English Tory Party. He advises Johnson on all manner of issues, as we have found out. He doesn’t like the military much. He has never liked your aircraft carriers. But then, you voted Tory I expect? Meanwhile, onward to independence for us!

      • Hi Mike.

        Thanks. None of that has anything to do with my points above bar attempting to rile, but quite happy to respond in kind.

        “Unelected, of course, such is the way of the English Tory Party”

        Conservative and Unionist, not English.

        Heard of Alistair Campbell, Andrew Murray, or Seamus Milne? Elected?

        “He has never liked your aircraft carriers.”

        And yours. You’re British I expect, it must hurt loathing you’re own nation so much.

        “Meanwhile, onward to independence for us!”

        What, with 45% of Scots voting for you? Less than half.

        You have less MP’s now than in 2015.

        Of course I voted Tory, you think I would vote for Jeremy Corbyn ??? Or a woman who wishes to break up my country, or Jo Swinson who’s idea of respecting the greatest democratic vote in this nations history is to revoke it? That went down well didn’t it.

        Shall we have an Independence Referendum that all the UK takes part in?

      • Does it not feel weird talking about independence when the SNP want to sign their sovereignty straight away to the European Union?

        • Many thanks. It’s always good to let them know that there are alternative views. They can’t really stand in the way of the will of the people of Scotland. 48/59 Westminster seats – not long now. It will be interesting to see our own armed forces set up, won’t it? Respect back.

          • Hi Mike. Need to get the votes cast for SNP well beyond 50% so that it can be converted into a referendum result without that its a waste of time. Also Nikki is not one for building allies which might come in useful later on.

          • Just curious, as an independence supporter. Do you think Boris deserves the chance to negotiate his post withdrawal free trade deal with the EU before the referendum vote or should the vote take place during the with drawl period when Scots wont know what the future relationship looks like.
            If Boris gets a Canada style free trade deal I don’t think the SNP would have a hope in hell of winning the referendum which is why they are so desperate to hold it before the free trade deal takes place.

      • Conveniently forgetting that the Tories have the second highest vote share in Scotland, plus of course that 55% of Scots voted for pro Union parties. I fully respect everyone’s right to choose but I think it is a bit fanciful to think the UK Govt will grant Indyref2 any time soon. You may say they have no right to say no, but they can and have.

        I would say Indyref2 is more likely after the next Holyrood elections and the UK’s relationship with the EU is settled. If after everyone has seen what it means they still vote SNP then the argument is strengthened.

        I get the feeling the SNP do not wish to wait because they fear support for independence will fall away in a few years time when the whole Brexit mess is settled and the world hasn’t ended.

        • “I get the feeling the SNP do not wish to wait because they fear support for independence will fall away in a few years time when the whole Brexit mess is settled and the world hasn’t ended.”

          Exactly.

          • Agreed Daniele. The figures suggest that independence support is between 40-45% which is strong but not strong enough. Annoying everyone and neglecting the domestic agenda is a strange tactic. Not sure what Boris has got up his sleeve but if its half decent the next election might be tricky for the SNP.

        • Exactly, I think I remember (although I may be mistaken) that the wording was something along the lines of – there will not be another independence referendum in Scotland unless there is a material change in circumstances and and/or public opinion… Only gaining 45% of the overall vote will not, in the Tories eyes, constitute enough of a material change – whether the SNP like it or not.

          As you say – in a couple of years when Brexit is (mostly) unpicked and we (hopefully) haven’t all starved to death or died through lack of pharmaceuticals… The mood will likely head back the way it did in 2017… and the SNP may find their voice ever quieter.

          I don’t really mind Scottish Nationalists, everyone is entitled to their opinion – It doesn’t mean the majority of the rest of us need to jump at every paddy though. I can’t stand the SNP though – stating unrealistic & fanciful wishlists as though it is fact is half of the reason they’re not taken seriously elsewhere.

          North sea oil – not what it used to be and never will be…

          Bank of England underwriting them – Won’t happen.

          Retaining the GBP – Won’t happen.

          Retaining RN contracts – Won’t happen.

          • Nicola Sturgeon herself has admitted that not everyone who voted SNP supports independence. The main messaging during the recent election campaign was vote SNP to keep out Boris/stop Brexit. Now the SNP are trying to re-write that very recent history and claim that it was always about letting Scotland choose.

            In the interests of balance it also isn’t the case that everyone who didn’t vote SNP wants to stay in the Union, some will support independence, so we’re left no more knowledgable than we were before the election in terms of the true level of support for independence.

  9. I was at Gunwharf at 1230, waiting for harbour cruise. I asked the ticket sales when it was leaving, he didn’t know. Heard it go but didn’t see it. Wish I had checked here earlier.

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