BRITAIN’S new aircraft carriers will house more amphibious assault forces than ever before, a minister has said.
HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, both to be based in Portsmouth, will take over the role of deploying amphibious forces to war zones when HMS Ocean is decommissioned in 2018.
Defence procurement minister Philip Dunne said each ship would house a force of 900 marines and aviation personnel – 210 more than Ocean – on top of their ship’s company.
A "drone" boat capable of carrying out 12-hour surveillance missions is being developed for the Royal Navy's new aircraft carriers.
The vessel, being created in Portsmouth by BAE Systems and ASV, will be used on the new Queen Elizabeth Class ships.
The modified rigid inflatable boats are capable of unmanned operations up to 25 miles (40km) away from their parent vessel.
They can also be remote controlled from land or ship, or piloted normally.
Preparations are underway for the first F-35 test flight aboard the United Kingdom’s new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier slated for 2018, BAE Systems officials said Tuesday at the Farnborough International Airshow.
BAE Systems engineers and UK Ministry of Defence officials are working with simulation technologies in order to ensure the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter will successfully take-off and land aboard the British Royal Navy’s newly christened HMS Queen Elizabeth carrier. The ship was christened July 4, 2014.
U.S. and British officials had planned for the F-35 to execute a fly over of the Queen Elizabeth on the day of its christening to be the F-35s first ever international flight before the grounding of the Joint Strike Fighter fleet canceled those plans.
“Overall, this ship has been designed with the F-35 in mind from day one,” said David Atkinson, BAE Systems, Team JSF.
Slated to enter service in 2020, the 65,000-ton Queen Elizabeth is the largest warship ever built by the UK. It will be the first in a series of two planned Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers, ships being engineered to house and sustain as many as 36 JSF aircraft, BAE officials said.
While not quite the size of an U.S. Navy Nimitz or Ford-class aircraft carrier, the Queen Elizabeth-class ships will be 280-meters long and carry a crew of 671. The ship will house a total of 40 aircraft including Joint Strike Fighters and Chinook and Merlin helicopters. The first helicopter trial flights from the carrier deck are slated for 2017, Atkinson said.
The ship is being built by a BAE Systems-led team including Babcock and Thales. Some estimates put the prince of the Queen Elizabeth at $5 billion U.S. dollars.
The design, configuration and deck space of the ship have all been engineered to accommodate the F-35B Short Take-Off-and-Landing, or STOVL, variant of the JSF – the same variant of the aircraft planned for the U.S. Marine Corps.
