F-35Bs land and take off from the flight deck of the Royal Navy’s new flagship for the first time
All Images: PO Arron Hoare
For the first time in eight years, fast jets have been in operation from a British aircraft carrier as tests begin of F-35 Lightning IIs from HMS Queen Elizabeth. Tests will take 11 weeks, during which time more than 500 takeoffs and landings are scheduled to take place.
The jets taking part in the trials are not part of the permanent complement of aircraft that will be stationed on the carrier. These have now started to arrive in the UK, to their land base at RAF Marham in Norfolk.
The first F-35Bs to land on the carrier were piloted by Royal Navy Commander Nathan Grey and RAF Squadron Leader Andy Edgell, using the aircraft’s vertical landing capability, and shortly afterwards Cmdr Gray became the first pilot to take off from the carrier using its ‘ski ramp’. Queen Elizabeth has the capability to carry up to 24 F-35s, although the number on board any particular time will vary depending on the mission the ship is carrying out. The trials are being carried out by a group known as ITF (integrated test force), made up of British and American personnel dedicated to trials of the new aircraft. Once the tests have been completed, the permanent complement will be cleared to begin operations from the deck of the carrier.
The commanding officer of Queen Elizabeth, Capt Jerry Kidd, was by coincidence also in command of the last carrier on which Sea Harriers were in operation. “I am quite emotional to be here in HMS Queen Elizabeth seeing the return of fixed-wing aviation,” he said. “The regeneration of big deck carriers able to operate globally, as we are proving here on this deployment, is a major step forward for the United Kingdom’s defence and our ability to match the increasing pace of our adversaries. The first touch-downs of these impressive stealth jets shows how the United Kingdom will continue to be world leaders at sea for generations to come.”
Cmdr Gray was equally touched by the experience. “No words can explain how it felt to turn the corner at 500mph and see HMS Queen Elizabeth awaiting the arrival of her first F-35 jets. I feel incredibly privileged,” he said. “For a naval aviator it is always a special moment when you spot the carrier in the distance, hidden within a grey expanse of ocean. HMS Queen Elizabeth is a floating city, home to hundreds of fellow sailors and Royal Marines, and it’s been a particularly poignant day.”
The trials are taking place off the East Coast of the United States, accompanied by the Type 23 frigate HMS Monmouth and the USS Lassen, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. After completing them the carrier is expected to visit New York. After that, it will return to its home base of Portsmouth, and is expect to become fully operational in 2021. Meanwhile, BAE Systems is still working on Queen Elizabeth’s sister ship, HMS Prince of Wales, at Rosyth dockyard, where it is nearing completion.
The flight trials are also including rotary wing aircraft; Wildcat HMA2 helicopters began tests in mid-September.
- The introduction of F-35s hit a setback last week, with the first crash of the new aircraft, a US Marine Corps F-35B variant, in South Carolina. The pilot ejected safely and there were no injuries. The Marine Corps is now beginning an investigation of the incident.
One of those innovations that seem obvious … IN HINDSIGHT … a ski jump to assist take-offs. Especially important, when the ship costs about £11m per metre length
I wonder how advanced we would be if Harold Wilson and Tony Benn had not cancelled the P1154. Supersonic Harrier in 1964 !!!! Just think we might even have been selling the Americans fighters on second thoughts that would not happen as our politicians always give our innovations away instead of supporting our brilliant engineers and benefiting from the production and sales
Like the Harrier, no doubt the P1154 would have be built under license by one of the American aerospace companies. Also Denis Healey was Defence Secretary in 1964 and rumour has it that he always favoured American aircraft over any UK design.
Dennis Healey was a proper Defence Secretary. At least he’d seen some service in the Armed Forces. Not like the present Incumbent.
“some service in the Armed Forces”? He was a beachmaster at Anzio!
We as a United Kingdom are so proud and to see Union flag wow
I suppose most people noted that the F-35Bs used in these trials were US Marine Corps aircraft. Nine British aircraft are now at Marham for training and working-up to operational readiness.
Heartiest congratulations to the entire crew of HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH.
You are undertaking a vital job in the defence of us all for which I personally am extrmely gratefull.
KEEP THE FLEET TO KEEP THE PEACE.
On a lighter note Capt, KIDD I hope you are not related to the 18century
captain KIDD, but then again he certainly showed the way?
How many aircraft carriers have sunk since 1945?
Oddly enough, none (apart from an out of service French one that the US Navy sank as target practice in 1966).
Knowing where it took off from is not much use if it’s heading towards your airborne strike force at supersonic speeds. They’re still going to get shot down.
Its not nuclear powered becausse it needs to carry fuel for the aircraft anyway. Getting at a QE2 fully loaded carrier with a missile would be difficult for various reasons during normal operations. The carrier can launch normal non vertical take off jets without a catapult using a few simple but classsified techniques.
Some one is going to tell me that, like our nuclear deterrent, this floating field will be used every day of its life?
I remind myself that the Atlantic Conveyor (containing the choppers being taken to the Falklands and an essential part of the planned movement of troops across the island) was destroyed by a single missile: and that the other ‘carrier’ was required to stay well out of harms way! [my brother-in law was very instrumental in ensuring that “Huntsman”, the largest tug capable of towing the carrier, if as was considered likely its engines failed, was available! Remind me, how much did the whole episode cost (£3 billions?) and what is the present annual cost of keeping ‘stuff’ and bodies there. I am reminded of De Bono’s suggestion that as it was costing the US $1,000,000 to remove each VC from the battle-field, simple bribery ($50,000 would have bought anyone in Asia in the late 60s) would have been a very cost-effective option.
As the whole point of the nuclear deterrent is that it not be used and that its existence dissuades others from attacking us, it is, in point of fact, being used every day of its life. Yes, it’s pedantry.
Out of curiosity. I looked up how much it costs to defend the Falklands. Unsurprisingly, those figures are not available. I did find an itemised estimate that put the figure at around £116million per year in 2015; just short of £40,000 per resident per year.
And what value do you put on the freedom of British people living in the Falklands?
Uncle Sam told them to do so (as for the TSR2) to get money to prop up the economy (after 13 years of misrule by the other lot!) with IMF loans.
No they did not. The UK aviation sector was very poorly managed, disparate and had no real ideas on programme budget management particularly at a time of rapidly evolving electronics. The RAF, MOD and other ministries were all at each others throats and ill equipped to deliver the TSR2 and other aircraft. TSR2 sired the Tornado and other collaborative aircraft programmes better suited to the complex requirements TSR2 was meant to fulfil.
Well, at the very least it is a product we have designed and built-I would like to believe that this carrier will benefit our engineering prowess in many ways-god knows it needs it. When I were a boy in the fifties there were several high-class engineering firms in a small place (as was ) such as Ipswich, which exported to much of the civilised world, from ploughs etc to massive generators. Our very own Luddites saw to the end of ALL of them and their thousands of workers and their skills with it. Would it would all rise again…………..
I repeat what myself and others have said before: if we cannot afford it…
I can only repeat a comment from my brother-in-law again. As part of a firm who made vast diesel engines (without which the Task Force would not have left port!) and who travelled to P Stanley (a flight when he did it involving several refuelling stops) to bid for the new electrical supply facility to ‘power’ the defence capabilities to be installed…that if their defence is costed properly, a la De Bono (do what you can afford to do) airline tickets, fully funded accommodation and leased farms or whatever other ’employment’ they want would be a fraction of the cost. We apply such ‘rules’ to all other Government finances..so why not this running sore. Come to think of it, there must be some other factor involved?
I have a nagging recollection that another blogger has confirmed (as these two floating fields are NOT nuclear powered) that having tankers in tow (metaphorically if not physically too) will severely restrict the freedom of the seas they are supposed to have. I presume that somewhere in the former USSR and Beijing the sums have already been done to calculate the restrictions and hence the most vulnerable locations ?
This is an appallingly bad aircraft carrier.
It is not nuclear reactor powered so needs constant fueling support.
It is limited to only flying one type of fixed wing aircraft as the government in its infinite stupidity failed to finance a launching system.
The deck is blocked by 2 towers wasting space and adding obstructions to defensive systems.
The employed onboard defensive systems are inadequate to defend the ship against Chinese and Russian missile systems making it a floating target. It has no proper anti submarine countermeasures.
The division of responsibility between RAF and Navy is an innapropriate political expedient that tries to give to powers a bit of an indivisible cake. This will prove to be demented anobstructive. A clear chain of command is what the USA has demonstrated as necessary.
The deck layout is not suitable for efficient launch and retrieval.
The construction was politically motivated causing an extra 3 billion in costs due to its production dispersal.
A US hull design made in The UK would have been better and cheaper. The cancellation of the advanced Harriet was a bad decision.
The bureaucratic overview is an unnecessary cost. There are more people employed in the civil service administering the armed forces than actually employed in them. Most could be sacked as they are inept inefficient and waste vast sums of money.
Just say what you mean Brian
Everyone’s an expert!
F-35, another complete waste of money aimed at supporting the american defence industry and doing nothing at all for UK defence – apart from bankrupting it !
It’s not ‘stealthy’, the russians and chinese have radar systems that enable them to see it; It’s underpowered, particularly, the VTOL version; Maintenance and updates are controlled by the US and they have the ability to shut them down any time they desire; It’s overpriced, although no-one knows what it costs but, with maintenance, £250M each wouldn’t be far off the mark.
The purchase of this plane is 100% politically driven.
When this monster first arrived in Portsmouth some wag (ex-submariner) commented that it ought to have a huge bull’s eye painted on each side. These ships will need frigates to accompany them everywhere plus a fleet train for fuel and other replenishment items. The admiralty did not get their CV01 in the late 1960s and then now have two huge ships “to project power” . One well placed torpedo or missile and that is the end of that aspiration.
Carriers have operated as part of groups for decades.
Unlike all of the other aircraft carriers that operate independently or accompanied by nuclear powered frigates?
Every other nation is fine with aircraft carriers that have escorts.
Since those escorts always need fuel why is a non-nuclear carrier such a big problem?
Have you seen how much the Ford class are costing???
But it does have a crash barrier to stop damaged landing aircraft from destroying others already on the deck: I know this because a client used my skills to assist in developing the netting (containing sacrificial elements to adsorb energy) I watched the depiction/pictures of the various landings (including that at night) and noted that these were all ‘vertical’. Correct me please, but if this is the case, what are the other 90% of the deck not being used, for?
I always favoured the concept of four (all right I’ll allow eight) ‘containers’ attached to each other by suitable restraints and offering a temporary landing ground: albeit on an ordinary ‘container ship’. Presumably if the army can have prepared containers with command and control facilities simply to be hooked-up (almost Lego like) to each other and wherever they are required they could tell their Royal Navy colleagues how to do the same! Now I have no idea how many container vessels we have in our Merchant Fleet but it must be hundreds: each a potential temporary aircraft carrier. [OK, paint them differently as a one-off! if the Admiralty wants they grey!] What appears to be absolutely lacking is the concept of operations research into the total requirements for sea-borne effort. Love the idea of a bulls-eye (what about a proper eye, to blind the missiles as they approach.
Following on from the ‘eye’ concept, I believe the patterning on the wings of a butterfly has its roots in the creation of the image of a large ‘bird’ face -with eyes that would frighten off an attacking bird suddenly, when the butterfly flaps its wings, believing that its quarry is much bigger that it believed when it started to attack what it believed was just a butterfly. But as another blogger has recently opined, nature has had a long R&D period to get it right!
ISTR that the issue with TSR2 was an argument as to who should build it – Vickers as the old boy on the block (of Valiant wing spar fame) or English Electric who were the only supersonic builder we had (Fairy, Saunders-Roe projects having been cancelled by the Sandys 1957 Defence Review that thought guided missiles were the future – where are you Ferranti??). This caused an 18 month delay during which costs rose to £1bn and with the change of government, TSR2 was an easy target. It was a pity as it was so far ahead but much of the technology ended up in the Tornado and ultimately the Typhoon. The organisation of our aerospace industry, like most of our industry, was terrible and to some extent, it still is. The FD2, which held the world air speed record in the ’50s, had to be tested in France for cheaper insurance reason. One of the spectators, M. Marcel Dassault, commented later that if we had been better organised, we would have built the Mirage.
The BBC series showed the F35B doing a rolling landing, which it appears hadn’t been done before so presumably all F35B landings were vertical. Vertical landing with full munitions/fuel was apparently not possible so an aborted takeoff or mission would be very expensive!
After a few tries to get the glide path right, the aircraft came to a complete stop on its brakes well within the QE’s deck so no traps were needed.
ISTR that Harriers could – and did – land that way but the thought struck me that a navalised (ie fit for a marine environment) Typhoon with tail deflectors and beefed up landing gear/brakes and perhaps with a tail parachute in case of emergency could also be persuaded to land that way and with it’s excellent power to weight ratio and low speed deflectors, would presumably be able take off from the ski-jump. I wonder whether BAE has thought of this…. 🙂