Ark Royal's final day

TheMightyTen · 11 Mar 2011 at 10:11

Well the end of an era today with the White Ensign being lowerd fo the last time on The Mighty Ark.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-12706441

It's the second Ark I've seen go in my lifetime

. I know money needs to be saved and the QE class with a compliment of aircraft will be coming online at the end of the decade but it does seem a tad short sighted leaving us without the ability to launch fixed wing aircraft without the use of allied resources. With the likely announcement, finally, of the scrapping of HMS Endurance in the next few months we seem to be losing all the memorable Ships from our fleet

On a side note, it always tickles me that her last Captain (and now Captain of Illustrious) is called Captain Kyd

Tombstone · 11 Mar 2011 at 10:16

TheMightyTen said:
Well the end of an era today with the White Ensign being lowerd fo the last time on The Mighty Ark.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hampshire-12706441

It's the second Ark I've seen go in my lifetime . I know money needs to be saved and the QE class with a compliment of aircraft will be coming online at the end of the decade but it does seem a tad short sighted leaving us without the ability to launch fixed wing aircraft without the use of allied resources. With the likely announcement, finally, of the scrapping of HMS Endurance in the next few months we seem to be losing all the memorable Ships from our fleet

On a side note, it always tickles me that her last Captain (and now Captain of Illustrious) is called Captain Kyd

I'll miss Endurance more than Ark Royal. After seeing an Ark Royal thousands of times I became somewhat apathetic to it, but the Endurance is a ship that I have always been happy to see pootling back into port.

All this for some rather unneeded "super" carriers. Shouldnt have bothered with the supercarriers at all imo, but thats the desire for shiny new sailor toys for you. Theres a petition going to have one of the new supercarriers renamed Ark Royal to continue the tradition, I think that would be a nice touch.

Ewaf · 11 Mar 2011 at 10:19

Can see it from where I'm sat right now at work..

TheMightyTen · 11 Mar 2011 at 10:20

Ewaf said:
Can see it from where I'm sat right now at work..

Oh to be back home rather than this Midlands hell hole

Brookert · 11 Mar 2011 at 10:25

Tombstone said:
I'll miss Endurance more than Ark Royal. After seeing an Ark Royal thousands of times I became somewhat apathetic to it, but the Endurance is a ship that I have always been happy to see pootling back into port.

All this for some rather unneeded "super" carriers. Shouldnt have bothered with the supercarriers at all imo, but thats the desire for shiny new sailor toys for you. Theres a petition going to have one of the new supercarriers renamed Ark Royal to continue the tradition, I think that would be a nice touch.

I personally don't think the new carriers are unneeded, just poorly planned and executed. I thinks it a fail of a decision to retire or last carrier early, we have no fixed wing capability from the seas, and it was refitted recently.

I thought conservatives were pro armed forces? How I was wrong.

meghatronic · 11 Mar 2011 at 10:26

Brookert said:
I thought conservatives were pro armed forces? How I was wrong.

Well we don't have a Conservative government. So that renders moot your argument.

Tombstone · 11 Mar 2011 at 10:55

Brookert said:
I personally don't think the new carriers are unneeded, just poorly planned and executed. I thinks it a fail of a decision to retire or last carrier early, we have no fixed wing capability from the seas, and it was refitted recently.

I thought conservatives were pro armed forces? How I was wrong.

I think they are unneeded, at least the "super" side of them. To me there is no logic in building carriers which didnt fit into main naval harbour without the harbour itself being altered. Its not unneeded carriers I mean, its unneeded "super" carriers.

Westyfield2 · 11 Mar 2011 at 10:55

Sad day

.

Brookert said:
I thought conservatives were pro armed forces? How I was wrong.

We don't have a Conservative government, and the government have inherited a massive debt courtesy of Labour.

Cosimo · 11 Mar 2011 at 10:57

This is a day for sad news.

matt_fsr · 11 Mar 2011 at 10:58

I hate to be pessimistic on this one, but I'm also a realist.

This will cost lives. Simple as that.

What with the middle east in turmoil, countries changing governments and allegiances at the drop of a hat - and here's us, and the world knows we now have no carrier air cover for the next 9 years minimum, and thats if the JSW actually works and can fly from our new carriers without significant modifications.

I'm completely certain that somewhere in the next 9 years, we will have a need for air cover of our ground forces, or to project our reach in either a peacekeeping role, or a warfighting role.

If you've ever read anything about the previous Ark Royal's mad dash to prevent an invasion of Belize, you'll understand why scrapping this Ark is a terrible move.

Tombstone · 11 Mar 2011 at 11:01

Its a whole whack of money , £3.7 billion on 3 new submarines, £4 billion on the 2 new super carriers. Almost £8 billion for 5 vessels. I'm working in the wrong industry

Tombstone · 11 Mar 2011 at 11:04

matt_fsr said:
If you've ever read anything about the previous Ark Royal's mad dash to prevent an invasion of Belize, you'll understand why scrapping this Ark is a terrible move.

We'll just have to accept that we arent the power we once were and accept our new role in the world. We cant be running here , there and everywhere around the world policing other countries, we'll just have to let others deal with things or let the countries sort things out themselves. We are a very small island country and even if it means some people thousands of miles away die, we may just have to be a little more intraverted and self serving for a while.

VoG · 11 Mar 2011 at 11:11

TheMightyTen said:
It's the second Ark I've seen go in my lifetime

+1

tbh because i'm old enough to remember the previous Ark ( even if only thru the excellant documentary series "sailor" on the beeb ) ive allways looked at our current invincible class aircraft carriers & cringed, rightly or wrongly, they've allways struck me as second best, i'm probably one of the few people not sorry to see the current Ark go.

mrk · 11 Mar 2011 at 11:18

Sad that it's going but the public tour that ran not long ago was immensely popular but boring to eye watering levels. A friend and I queued for almost 2 hours which spanned to the start of the ferry terminal and spent no more than 30mins walking around. There really wasn't anything exciting to see. No jets on the jump pad, only 2 small choppers, no heavy artillery to marvel at either.

Glad it was free...

matt_fsr · 11 Mar 2011 at 11:19

Tombstone said:
We'll just have to accept that we arent the power we once were and accept our new role in the world. We cant be running here , there and everywhere around the world policing other countries, we'll just have to let others deal with things or let the countries sort things out themselves. We are a very small island country and even if it means some people thousands of miles away die, we may just have to be a little more intraverted and self serving for a while.

Indeed. Goodbye to the Falkland islands gas reserves then, and any pretences to upholding the international law that we're supposedly so concerned about.

We may be a very small island nation, but we're an extremely rich island nation - and one of the few who has been able to field aircraft carriers since their creation.

We spend £40bn+ each year on welfare benefits, yet can't afford a £billion or 2 to field a carrier? Depressing.

Brookert · 11 Mar 2011 at 11:22

Too many jobless whelps leeching off the state in today's Britain. We are slowly seeing the burden of social welfare.

mug: 'I cant work because I cant walk far'

my answer: sit at a desk/till
gov answer: here is your incapacity benefit

daver · 11 Mar 2011 at 11:22

I'm afraid the current and recent crises do little to support the retention of the Invincibles. Situations where Harriers are usable (don't forget we already had no Sea Harriers anyway so the Carriers were already relying on escorts for defensive capability) are extremely limited.

The invincibles might be useful as LPHs but we also have HMS Ocean and we probably only have enough helo capacity to fill one flat top. In any case in this role it would need allied/RAF air cover. So in a coalition effort they would only provide a token capability and in a solo war they would almost be a liability with their present capability. The replacements will be much more capable of operating in hostile conditions

Tombstone · 11 Mar 2011 at 11:24

matt_fsr said:
Indeed. Goodbye to the Falkland islands gas reserves then, and any pretences to upholding the international law that we're supposedly so concerned about.

We may be a very small island nation, but we're an extremely rich island nation - and one of the few who has been able to field aircraft carriers since their creation.

We spend £40bn+ each year on welfare benefits, yet can't afford a £billion or 2 to field a carrier? Depressing.

I think we are jumping to hyperbole here, simply not building 2 super carriers does not automatically mean that we will lose the Falkland Islands. As for upholding international law, I dispute the "we" in your sentence as I frankly couldnt give a damn about upholding international law.

As for the billions being spent, I would frankly rather we didnt spend £40 billion on welfare benefits OR £4 billion on 2 supercarriers, I'd rather we spent the money on hospitals, schools etc.

Morbius · 11 Mar 2011 at 12:07

Tombstone said:
Its a whole whack of money , £3.7 billion on 3 new submarines, £4 billion on the 2 new super carriers. Almost £8 billion for 5 vessels. I'm working in the wrong industry

The people who negotiate contracts for the military are fools or just plain naive. They always pay a ridiculously inflated price. Private companies end up paying far less for the same goods.

Tombstone · 11 Mar 2011 at 12:15

Morbius said:
The people who negotiate contracts for the military are fools or just plain naive. They always pay a ridiculously inflated price. Private companies end up paying far less for the same goods.

Seems to be the same for sports too, other countries seem to build astonishing stadiums for £200m and we build ordinary looking stadiums for £800m