Captain takes control of HMS Queen Elizabeth, the Royal Navy’s 65,000 tonne new aircraft carrier and one of the last major aircraft carriers built in the UK till date.
The Carrier will be based at Portsmouth Naval Base once the needed facilities at Portsmouth to support the vessels gets completed.
Captain Kyd said the Queen Elizabeth will be tasked with “protecting British maritime power around the world wherever the government needs it”. He added, “the Queen Elizabeth will be equipped to deal with future threats, including unmanned aircraft, robotics and cyber attacks.”
HMS Queen Elizabeth and sister ship HMS Prince of Wales were contracted to in a £6.2bn defence deal. The second carrier, HMS Prince of Wales, is still under construction in Rosyth.
Highlights:
Size:
At 280m, the HMS Queen Elizabeth is longer than the Houses of Parliament (265m). And its length is greater than the height of the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth (170m).
- F-35B: Fifth-generation fighter-bomber with stealth characteristics that is also capable of short take-offs and vertical landings. It can fly at Mach 1.6 and carry 15,000lb of weapons 900 nautical miles
- Forward island bridge: The Queen Elizabeth is unusual in having two “islands” on the flight deck – the forward one from which the ship is commanded and the aft one which controls aircraft movements. Having two islands means airflow over the flight deck is more stable, making flight operations safer. The aft island is also better positioned to command aircraft landings
- Long-range radar: Claimed to be able to automatically detect and track up to 1,000 air targets at a range of around 250 nautical miles
- Aircraft lifts: The Queen Elizabeth class has two of these lifts to move aircraft between the hangar and flight deck. Each one can move two F35s from the hangar to the flight deck in 60 seconds
- AgustaWestland AW101 Merlin: Medium-lift helicopter designed to replace ageing Sea King, this three-engine aircraft can carry a crew of three and 26 troops up to 450 nautical miles. It also conducts anti-submarine warfare and is due to take on airborne early warning duties using the new Crowsnest radar
- Medium-range radar: Artisan radar able to beat the most complex jammers and said to be able to track a target the size of a snooker ball 12 miles away
- Small calibre gun: The carriers are designed to receive the latest generation of the Phalanx close-in weapon system to defend against aircraft and missiles, firing 3,000 20mm shells a minute. Each ship will also have 30mm guns and mini-guns to tackle threats such as small boats
- Aircraft hangar: The hangar can accommodate any helicopter in the British military arsenal, including the twin-rotor Chinook
- Commanding officer’s suite: When not on the bridge, the ship’s commader works out of this group of cabins. The Queen Elizabeth’s first seagoing captain has been named as Commodore Jerry Kyd, the former Captain of HMS Ark Royal and HMS Illustrious
- Bulbous bow: Protrudes just below the waterline and alters the water’s flow around the hull, which reduces drag and improves efficiency, as well as improving buoyancy at the front of the ship
- Forward engine room: The ship is powered by two Rolls-Royce Marine Trent MT30 48,000 horsepower gas turbine generator units, the largest ever supplied to the Royal Navy. They can drive the ship along at more than 25 knots and it carries enough fuel to sail 10,000 nautical miles
- Propeller: Each of the ship’s two propellers weighs 33 tonnes – nearly two and half times as much as a double-decker bus
Reference: The Telegraph
