The two Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers currently in build in Rosyth are to get a flypast from F-35 aircraft on Friday.
A flight of F-35B jets will fly past the carriers at 2pm, with two flights past the HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales.
HMS Queen Elizabeth is in the final phases of fitting out in Rosyth. The flight deck of the 70,600 tonne vessels flight deck is nearly finished. Now a captain of one of the UK’s last aircraft carriers, the former HMS Illustrious, has told of his delight at the future flagship’s milestone.
Vice-Admiral Bob Cooling told The Portsmouth News:
“All the maritime community are absolutely delighted to see this magnificent ship becoming a reality. She puts us back in to the first division of major military nations. And it is right and proper her home port should be Portsmouth, which has been the home of the navy’s capital ships and air power ships for decades.”
Former First Sea Lord George Zambellas said:
“When the first of our new carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth, deploys on her first mission in a few years, with fifth generation fighters and drones embarked, she will scotch at a stroke any talk of Britain’s retreat from the world.”
Tabloids often like to quote 12 as the maximum number of F-35B’s the carrier will be able to carry (despite the intention to purchase 138 in the long term), however this, as you probably know, is nonsense. The carriers, in peacetime, will usually deploy with 12 F-35B’s as a minimum and a number of various helicopters. To reduce costs and free aircraft for other commitments, the maximum aircraft complement will not usually be carried in peacetime, it instead will be supplied as required or deployed to the vessels in the event of a crisis. Rather than funding a large and permanent Carrier Air Group, the relatively new concept of a Tailored Air Group rather than fixed Carrier Air Group will be adopted for the Queen Elizabeth class with the exact types and numbers of aircraft embarked being adjusted to meet current requirements and threats. I don’t see there being much call for 36 F-35B’s if delivering humanitarian aid, do you?
The Queen Elizabeth class mark a change from expressing carrier power in terms of number of aircraft carried, to the number of sortie’s that can be generated from the deck. The class are not the largest class of carrier in the world but they are most likely the smallest and least expensive carrier the Royal Navy could build which still have the advantages that large carriers offer.
Crew are currently moving aboard the supercarrier, sea trials begin in the New Year and the vessel moves to Portsmouth in Spring 2017.
Tim Lempriere Griffiths
If anyone would like to see the fly past from the Forth , followed by a close up view of the two carriers , we would be delighted to accomodate you aboard the ‘Forth Belle ‘ , sailing from Hawes Pier , South Queensferry at 1300 . Please come up to the wheelhouse and introduce yourselves .
Capt. Ali .
These will be the planes where uk military can’t access computer program black boxes so we are the beck and call of US? No doubt they can make them inoperative if we don’t play ball. Disgusting.
That’s bollocks
I am sorry to hear you live in a paranoid ferry tail world. Nothing you just stated has any base in reality.
Clueless.
The issue of UK software access was resolved years ago, before we signed the contract IIRC.
I just checked. UK and US announced memorandum agreement on access to source code in December 2006.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/22/raf-wont-be-able-to-repair-kit-on-f-35-jets—even-though-it-was/
Quote: “The executive said America’s International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) regulations meant that several export customers buy products of which they have “no knowledge of the workings of the innards”.
That is not the case with the F-35, our British engineers and pilots have been closely involved in the testing stateside, along with a large proportion of the actual airframe being made by British companies.
Why hasn’t the order been split between the 35 and 35B. Giving us a land based squadron with enhanced capability for European defence?
Might yet be but right now plans only call for 4 front line squadrons of 12 planes each to be stood up. If those were split 24 F35B and 24 F35A then we would never be able to field an air group of more than 24 planes spread across both carriers if a huge emergency requiring maximum strike capabilities were to arise. With all currently envisioned squadrons using F35B there is the ability to put 1 carrier up to full 36 plane strike group or even 24 on each carrier if refit schedules and crew availability allowed both to be at see at the same time.
As we get to the tail end of the F35 orders where some later units might be replacing Typhoons then just maybe some buys might get switched to F35A but I don’t see that happening for a while. In the mean time of course the F35B is perfectly capable of operating from land and in some scenarios it’s ability to use austere forward airfields would even give it an extra capability vs F35A.
About bloody time
..past THE(?)HMS Queen Elizabeth…Call me a pedant but surely either-HMS Queen Elizabeth or the Queen Elizabeth but NEVER- THE Her Majesty’s Ship..