Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier class ( Program CVF ) on active duty

Thorvic

Thorvic

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(Surprisingly there are no dedicated topics to this project within the Naval Projects, which was a surprise to me, plenty of references across the forum and movie posted in The Bar, but no specific project thread. :-\)

The prime source for the CVF program was Richard Breedals Navymatters.com, however after 10 years of progressive cut backs, lack of firm orders and scaling back of existing programs by the then Labour Government, Richard stopped updating his site after start of 2009.

I am currently attempting to build a model of the CVF in her current STOL/STOVL guise as that's still the official line, however with the current strategic defence review underway by the new coalition govt, the F-35B may be deemed too expensive as a viable JCA and the carriers could end up being completed as CTOL instead !.

The problem i have is that much of the published artwork and CGI dates from 2008 ish, so i was wondering if any of the members had seen more current artwork or images. I noticed in the Warship Technology magazine that RP1 mentioned, that their current edition has a newer graphic with some revised features, so if that's one are there any more ?
I suppose the trouble is the ship is now being constructed so promotional images now use the various blacks or components as they are assembled and completed rather than use updated images of the envisioned completed ship.

Thanks for the help

Cheers

Geoff

Moderator note: CVF program development was covered in dedicated threads. Please find it on the "similar threads" menu
 
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Thorvic said:
(Surprisingly there are no dedicated topics to this project within the Naval Projects, which was a surprise to me, plenty of references across the forum and movie posted in The Bar, but no specific project thread. :-\)
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Because its not an unbuilt project. See name of forum for further guidance.
 
I haven't seen much recent images/concept art of the final design. That said, are there any images of earlier concepts for the carrier? Was anything as exotic as some of the low RCS designs looked at during the CVN-21 program considered?
 
Not really CM

The UK was coming from a different aspect by looking for a more capable ship to replace the Invincibles, intially enlarged CVS designs capable of carrying a much larger STOVL air group. Then the govt relaised the potential of the concept and pushed for a 50yr lifespan with capability in the design to opt for CTOL configuration if nessessary during its service life. The USN was looking to see where it could improve and update its successful but now dated Nimitz class design to suit operations in the 21st century.

http://navy-matters.beedall.com/cvf2.htm

Above is the Navy matters site covering the main designs and their evolution, there were some readical designs but never serious contenders.


As it happens Navy News has a two page supplement on the CVF this month ;D
G
 
Might Britain Buy the Naval Rafale? (Ares blog)

France's procurement chief does not consider the idea that the UK may eventually opt for the Rafale for its new aircraft carriers completely ridiculous.

The naval version of the Rafale is "the only naval aircraft [on the market], together with the F-18 which is today is at the end of its life,” remarked Laurent Collet-Billon to the National Assembly's Defense and Armed Forces Commission on Oct. 5.

“Were the JSF naval version to be scrapped, it might even be possible that our British partners be obliged to knit closer ties with our industrialists,” he added. What he meant, of course, was that the Royal Navy could buy the naval version of the Rafale as the second-in-class of Britain's new aircraft carriers, the HMS Prince of Wales will be fitted with an Electro-magnetic Aircraft Launch System which is compatible with the Rafale.

But whether this surprising scenario takes place or not, Collet-Billon said “no export path should be left unexplored, even if it's in the long term.”

And he added that he was “persuaded that India and Brazil will develop naval aviation. We will then be the only ones, together with the Americans, to be able to offer a naval aircraft" because, as he pointed out, there is no naval version of the Eurofighter.
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He seems to be ignoring the Naval Gripen.
 
RP1 said:
... and the Super Hornet.
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He did say we are the only ones "together with the Americans" who can offer naval fighters. Which is true. The Naval Gripen, the Naval Typhoon are all paper planes and further are not CATOBAR planes. They are like the Naval Su-27s and Navl MiG-29s not designed to be catapulted. Which is rather important considering the context is an EMALS equipped CVF. So the comment, as unlikely as it is, stands. If you want an in production CATOBAR fighter you can go to Lockheed, Boeing, Dassault or no one.
 
I should have been more specific. The statement
F-18 which is today is at the end of its life
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is what I have a bit of an issue with. Super Hornet is only 3 years older than Rafale, IIRC.

RP1
 
RP1 said:
I should have been more specific. The statement
F-18 which is today is at the end of its life
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is what I have a bit of an issue with. Super Hornet is only 3 years older than Rafale, IIRC.
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Yeah its a crazy statement in a crazy stream of comments. The USN Flight Plan has upgrades for the Super Hornet out to 2035. And it is still in production with no order yet to terminate the line. And the Growler is just on the tip of the iceberg.
 
Been a report on BBC's One Show this evening with Dan Snow in Portsmouth. Some good views of the fore island assembly. It'll be on iPlayer later I would imagine but not sure how those overseas get to see it. Says the LB02 is somewhere off Grimsby so i'm sure the AIS wathchers can update us :)
 
F-35B: Anatomy of a decision (defencemanagement.com)

Just over a year into the process it became apparent that initial cost estimates had been optimistic to say the least. The design of the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers – the biggest ships the Royal Navy will have ever operated – was not friendly to 'cats and traps', and this was perhaps the biggest hurdle the F-35C move faced. The plans for angled decks and short take-off and vertical landing aircraft were already set in stone, so decks would need to be removed and hundreds of compartments would need to be carved up and re-engineered to get the two catapults per ship on to the deck. Installation would be "substantially more invasive" than had originally been thought, a defence source told DefenceManagement.com. Some 290 major modifications and 250 minor alterations to existing compartments would have to be made on HMS Prince of Wales in order to allow the installation of the equipment. With HMS Queen Elizabeth, which would have already been fitted with a completed angled deck, conversion costs would have approached £3bn.

EMALS itself was an unknown quantity too. Designed to be used on America's new 'supercarriers' the Gerald Ford class, with four catapult systems per carrier, the UK's planned two catapult system would require substantial re-engineering of EMALS. The US was also insistent that the UK use a foreign military sales process to procure the system, rather than allowing a direct purchase from the manufacturer, which increased costs further. The high costs, not helped by the three-year delay that conversion would incur and the need to re-establish catapult launched flight in the Royal Navy, were simply too much.
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http://www.defenseworld.net/news/9968/Royal_Navy_Aircraft_Carriers_To_Get_New_Surveillance_Systems_By_2019
 
Published on Jul 8, 2014

The Queen has officially named the UK's largest ever warship in a spectacular ceremony in Rosyth, near Edinburgh. HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH is the first of two 65,000 tonne Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers being delivered by the Aircraft Carrier Alliance, a partnership between the Ministry of Defence, BAE Systems, Babcock and Thales.The naming ceremony marks the structural completion of the vessel, which will be floated out of her dock in the following weeks.The Red Arrows turned the sky red, white and blue above the ship before Her Majesty christened the ship with a bottle of whisky.


http://youtu.be/QsSda4th4t0
 
Love the pomp and circumstance ;D Three cheers for the Brits....Hip Hip Hooray......................
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-28342192

HMS Queen Elizabeth carrier floated for the first time

HMS Queen Elizabeth has been floated for the first time at docks in Rosyth.

The giant aircraft carrier was released from a dry dock at about 03:00 on Thursday.

The ship is the largest warship ever built for the Royal Navy and was formally named by the Queen in a ceremony earlier this month.

It will remain in Rosyth until it is handed over to the Ministry of Defence in 2016 ahead of being put into service in 2020.

Six shipyards from across the UK and more than 10,000 people were involved in building parts of the vessel.

The estimated cost of the ship and its sister ship, the HMS Prince of Wales. is £6.2bn, well over the initial projected cost of £3.65bn.

The warship is as long as 25 buses and can carry 40 jets and helicopters at a time. It will have a permanent crew of almost 1,600.

Once the carrier has been fitted out with equipment, it will make way for the assembly of its sister ship which is set to start later this year at Rosyth.
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This article from The Telegraph made me believe that HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales were named for the current monarch and the heir apparent:

"Prince Charles 'saves Ark Royal’"
By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent
7:30AM BST 02 May 2011

Source:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/theroyalfamily/8487325/Prince-Charles-saves-Ark-Royal.html

The Prince is understood to have privately agreed to allow HMS Prince of Wales, which is under construction, to be renamed Ark Royal, after the former flagship bearing the name was decommissioned.

A senior Navy officer is understood to have approached the Prince, who holds the rank of admiral in the Navy, who made clear that he had no objection to the name change.

A defence source said: “The Prince of Wales has been asked and he is pretty relaxed about it.”

A senior Navy officer said it was virtually unheard of to change the name of a ship that was already being built.

“But this does recognise that the name Ark Royal is iconic. The name conjures up the whole history of these islands and it would represent the future of the Navy and its past,” he said.

Clarence House said no formal approach had been made on the name change

A Ministry of Defence official said no decision had yet been made on naming the ship, which would be the sixth to be called Ark Royal.
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I understand that the Invincible class R07 was originally intended to be named HMS Indomitable. This name was later changed to HMS Ark Royal after public outcry over the loss of the name when the Audacious-class aircraft carrier, HMS Ark Royal, was scrapped. Does the British public insist on a new ship named HMS Ark Royal? Or perhaps the Astute-class attack submarine S125 being renamed from HMS Ajax to HMS Ark Royal?
 
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-southchinasea-fighters-idUSKBN13R00D

A trifle optimistic, at the very least, IMHO.
 
Yea just diplomatic boasting, saying we could be back in theatre, but we all know we won't have the funding or capacity to do anything more than the odd global deployment to see our friends in Australia and the region. The QEC class are more likely to cover the Atlantic, Med and Gulf (including the African coast) to show the flag and basically cover for US CVN's whilst they concentrate more on the Pacific.
 
The Invincibles were originally described as 'Through Deck Cruisers' so as not to alarm the Treasury - hence their names would be Invincible, Inflexible and Indomitable after the first three battlecruisers of 1906.
 
They were initially conceived as cruisers and even as built and initially operated they were essentially helicopter cruisers just with the addition of five Sea Harriers. At commissioning they were regarded as CVS (anti-submarine carriers) which was just about fair, though the addition of an L (for Light) would possibly have been even fairer, and which matched their assigned NATO role as the core of Anti-Submarine Group 2. CVSG to reflect Sea Dart was also used on occasion.

The air wing became much larger during and after the Falklands; it was standardised after the Falklands at eight Sea Harriers, nine ASW Sea Kings and three AEW Sea Kings for a total of twenty aircraft: much more deserving of the CVS moniker.

After the end of the Cold War and the subsequent removal of the Sea Dart system and the conversion of its magazine to air weapons stowage they effectively became light attack carriers (CVLA if you will) operating various mixes of RN and RAF Harriers before ending up as LPHs in their twilight days.

The treasury looked at numbers, not names, and either way naming them after battlecruisers hardly conveys cheapness, not to mention Indomitable was subsequently used for an Illustrious class fleet carrier.
 
Warship's launch is delayed amid fears over rising costs (The Times, registration may be required.)

The launch of Britain’s new aircraft carrier has been delayed by three months because of technical problems that have yet to be fixed.

The multibillion-pound programme to have HMS Queen Elizabeth and a squadron of F-35 jets operating at sea by 2021 is also under threat, the National Audit Office (NAO) says in a report being published today. A second carrier, HMS Prince of Wales, is due to be operational by 2026.

The government’s spending watchdog says that the overall cost of the two ships — £6.2 billion, almost double the original estimate — could rise by up to £124 million.
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Another non-news story. Of course you don't perform trials in the teeth of a gale with a brand-new ship.
Given the ex-tropical storm Ophelia (force 12, 27ft waves SW of Ireland) and storm Brian that battered us over the last couple of weeks its not a surprise. Given we're heading into winter the window between further Atlantic storms is probably narrowing.
 
If it were flight trials no one would bat an eyebrow, but people don't think about sea trials requiring appropriate weather. One of those 'only a story if you don't understand the facts' stories.
 
That they still have to push bomb carts manually well into the 21st century is a shame.
 
TomcatViP said:
That they still have to push bomb carts manually well into the 21st century is a shame.
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What do you mean by that? the 'munitions handling' article describes in some detail that the sailors won't have to do that, thanks to the automated munitions handling system.
 

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