Thursday, June 29, 2017

Britain's Newest Aircraft Carrier Has No Planes. Flight Crews Are Practising With 'Dummy Planes'

HMS Queen Elizabeth is seen with HMS Sutherland and HMS Iron Duke. The aircraft carrier proudly hit the waters earlier this week - but currently its crew only has replica planes to practise with

Daily Mail: It's a BAREcraft carrier! UK's new £3.1bn warship dubbed Big Lizzie heads to the North Sea for six weeks of testing with empty decks and NO planes to transport

* Replicas of the F-35 Lightning II jets were delivered to RNAS Culdroe so crews can practise pushing them
* Despite their convincing appearances the models at the Cornwall base lack engines, sensors or weapons
* But naval personnel will get used to moving bigger, heavier aircraft than they ever have done before
* HMS Queen Elizabeth - Britain's biggest-ever warship - was deployed in Firth, Scotland, earlier this week

The £3.1billion HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier was today photographed making its way to the North Sea - with no planes on board.

Instead, life-size models of the F-35 Lightning II jets will be pushed around tarmac at Cornwall's RNAS Culdrose so flight deck teams can get a feel for the world's most advanced warplanes.

The real jets will be deployed on the 65,000-tonne vessel - named 'Big Lizzie' - which was put into the sea for the first time in Scotland on Monday.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: HMS Queen Elizabeth does look impressive on the open sea.

2 comments:

D.Plowman said...

Looks like an overpriced plastic toy...

B.Poster said...

"Looks like an overpriced plastic toy." I like your optimism. I was thinking more on the lines of what I think of with regards to US aircraft carriers which are "floating death traps" for the crews.

Aircraft carries can be effective against countries with no navy or those with less than crap navies. For a country with ANY kind of Navy, these are easily sunk and/or neutralized.

For example, on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the best possible a country with a Navy rating of 2.50 would be able to easily neutralize an aircraft carrier, at least a US one of which the British version is likely no better. Russia was wise to curtail the development of new aircraft carriers.