Aircraft Carriers to be built in the UK!
Posted by: delusional in Automotive, Economy, Maritime, News, Politics
The Royal Navy’s next class of aircraft carriers is set to be built in the United Kingdom creating real jobs in something called ‘industry’.
The new aircraft carriers replace the diminutive Invincible class carrier (also known as through-deck cruisers) which could only support STOVL/VTOL operations. Typically though, it’s not going to be as simple as going straight back to normal carriers, oh no. The new Queen Elizabeth Class will be built to the dimensions and specifications needed for proper, angle-deck CATOBAR operations and then fitted with a ’ski-ramp’ and no arrestor or catapult gear and used for STOVL operations of the F-35B. You couldn’t make it up. 
The MoD say the carriers are ‘future-proof’ in that they can be later fitted out for CATOBAR. I reckon they’ll be fitted out for CATOBAR (at great cost, no doubt) fairly soon on when their abilities with the F-35B get shown up by the Americans who will be launching normal F-35s with greater payloads and the French who will also be taking a carrier of the same design but fitted for CATOBAR to support their Dassault Rafale fighters. The MoD seem hell-bent on getting it wrong to start with and then spending a fortune fixing it in a hurry.
Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales are to be built by VT-Group and BAE Systems with work being carried out at Glasgow and Rosyth in Scotland and Barrow-in-Furness and Portsmouth in England.
The new carriers which will displace 65,000 tons each and carry up to 40 aircraft are due in service around 2015. The contracts for their construction are said to be worth £3bn and could create or secure up to 10,000 jobs.
Now if we (the UK) knew what was good for us, we’d be out trying to sell variants of this carrier design, scaled down versions etc wherever we could as well as using them as marketing material for British ship-building industry at every turn yet these vessels appear to be pretty much a one-off. The single French aircraft carrier based on the same design will be built in Saint Nazaire and Brest.
Tags: angle-deck, bae systems, barrow-in-furness, catobar, cvf, f-35b, french carrier, glasgow, portsmouth, rosyth, royal navy, stovl, vt group
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[...] Delusions of Grandeur-”The contracts for their construction are said to be worth £3bn and could create or secure up to 10,000 jobs. Now if we (the UK) knew what was good for us, we’d be out trying to sell variants of this carrier design, scaled down versions etc wherever we could as well as using them as marketing material for British ship-building industry at every turn yet these vessels appear to be pretty much a one-off.” [...]