Military Bulletin 02/2016 – UK Aircraft Carrier Progress

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Military Bulletin 02/2016 – UK Aircraft Carrier Progress.

How are the UK’s Aircraft Carriers progressing?

The completion of the first of United Kingdom’s new Queen-Elizabeth class aircraft carrier is progressing well. HMS Queen Elizabeth is currently engaged in harbour trials and system integration. It is expected to leave Rosyth and go to sea towards the end of 2016, early 2017.

The lessons learnt in the modular construction of the 65,000 ton HMS Queen Elizabeth, has enabled the time taken to fabricate and assemble the modules of HMS Prince of Wales, to be cut by around 9 months. HMS Prince of Wales is also expected to come in under budget. The naming ceremony is expected mid 2017.

The aircraft carriers will each have a 110 MW power and propulsion system, which will consist of two 36MW MT30 gas turbine alternators, four diesel generators (combined 40 MW output) along with four electrically powered 20 MW advanced induction motors to drive the the twin shaft lines and propellers.

A key focus currently is on QECs on-board network, currently constrained to 8 Mbits/s. The belief is that it could need to be in excess of 32 Mbits/s. The US Marine Corps operating F-38Bs from its newest amphibious assault ship , USS America, is experiencing bottlenecks with a network limited to 32 Bits/s.

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The Royal Navy's largest ever warship HMS Queen Elizabeth is gently floated out of her dock for the first time in Rosyth, Scotland.
The Royal Navy’s largest ever warship HMS Queen Elizabeth is gently floated out of her dock for the first time in Rosyth, Scotland.

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Post copyrighted to Harvey Black

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