Queen Elizabeth Aircraft Carrier sets sail tonight

ubersonic said:
Hey don't underestimate the lifespan of a carrier.

The HMS Hermes was a WW2 era Centaur class carrier laid down in 1944, redesigned to CATOBAR in the 50's, finally completed/launched in 1959, converted to STOVL in the 70's (lets hope this cost saving measure has no ill effects), served in the Falklands war in the early 80's (oh ****), sold to India in the late 80's, upgraded in the 90's, and finally decommissioned from service in March of 2017 as converting back to CATOBAR was deemed too expensive.

So if the Queen Elizabeth lasts 73 years too that would be great (as would an upgrade to CATOBAR, as it should have been in the first place).
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Was talking about the planes not the carrier itself.
 
Raggs said:
cheers I'm reading that HMS prince of wales may be mothballed or sold what a farce :( but we don't have the escorts ships in large enough numbers these days to protect them.
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We could have built another Type 45 for the cost of the DUP deal :s
 
I thought the US were going for the non-VTOL version of F35 (so need wires/catapults on their carriers) was the because the non-VTOLs have higher speed and/or loadout capacity? Having that big extra engine in the middle (as opposed to the Harriers vectored thrust) has a performance cost.
 
Steampunk said:
I thought the US were going for the non-VTOL version of F35 (so need wires/catapults on their carriers) was the because the non-VTOLs have higher speed and/or loadout capacity? Having that big extra engine in the middle (as opposed to the Harriers vectored thrust) has a performance cost.
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Yeah but it looks cool and that's all that the government likes, looking cool, not doing anything important.
 
View of HMS Queen Elizabeth from HMS Sutherland escort frigate off the coast of Scotland

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StriderX said:
Could have a capture net that is strong enough to deal with drones, have it at the back... then the euphemisms can begin.
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By the time we get to drone carriers, I wouldn't be surprised if we have VTOL capable drones, or drones that don't need carriers because they can fly for months with very long range. Or we have airborne drone carriers with long range that carry smaller drones for operations.
 
Steampunk said:
I thought the US were going for the non-VTOL version of F35 (so need wires/catapults on their carriers) was the because the non-VTOLs have higher speed and/or loadout capacity?
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Yep, it's an all round better more capable plane but requires a better carrier (you can't carry as much fuel/weapons when using a ski jump), sadly our government chose to go with the el-cheapo option, again, hopefully it doesn't backfire horribly this time.
 
Big Spender said:
Guaranteed there is probably a submarine shadowing the carrier also
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Definitely.

But yea, our government is terrible at money. Every single time they buy cheap and then end up having to spend much more fixing the issues, instead of doing it properly the first time. They never learn.

In the old days we did everything in-house and made some of the best military equipment of the age. I bet this carrier uses cheap Chinese steel as well. The ship is supposed to last 50 years, but I recon it will be rusting away in 10. These ships are supposed to protect the country and if they aren't the best they can possibly be they shouldn't bother, build something else instead.
 
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Nasher said:
But yea, our government is terrible at money. Every single time they buy cheap and then end up having to spend much more fixing the issues, instead of doing it properly the first time. They never learn.
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I'm guessing there is some implications there for why the Type 45s struggled with warm water operation :s also crazy that they could have had 12 Type 45s at around £600m per boat but ended up with 6 at around £1.2bn per boat (after engine updates, etc.) even struggling for money that is really poor value even if we ended up selling or leasing a couple of them or something to make up the difference :|
 
I think she looks great and although I accept that she's an aircraft carrier with no planes, she does have helicopters for the here and now. She's also a message to other powers that we are in part, back in business and she is 4 acres of U.K. sovereignty.
 
Not sure how much I believe the windows XP thing. It's just the press making assumptions, which they do a lot of when it comes to these things. It could be something not even linked to the ship itself (which will be an airgapped network for the internal systems btw. No external networking which can be remotely hacked).

The MOD ditched windows XP ages ago, they are a lot more aware of things than the NHS.
 
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Can't remember which but on one cross-channel trip a few years ago either on the hovercraft or catamaran I noticed their main systems were all running Windows ME - that wasn't inspirational :s
 
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