Vayu’s UK correspondent Richard Gardner reports on the Royal Navy’s impending resurgence as a fixedwing carrier operating force
The UK Royal Navy’s new aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth, made a spectacular entrance to Portsmouth harbour on 16 August 2017, which is now her new home base. On this occasion, which marks a major step in the RN’s ambitious plan for the regeneration of strike carrier capability, the UK Prime Minister, Theresa May and Admiral Sir Philip Jones, First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff, underlined the intention to use the new carriers “to open a new era in global maritime power projection.”
Admiral Jones said, “These ships and our continued investment in a strong Royal Navy send an unmistakable message to friend and foe alike–the UK has both the intent and means to protect our interests, shoulder our responsibilities and advance our ambitions in an uncertain world.
Then Secretary of State for Defence, Sir Michael Fallon said, “As we look to life beyond the European Union, a global Britain won’t be stepping back; we’ll be stepping up to defend our shores and fight for the global good.”
The August edition of the RN’s Navy News carried a comment piece entitled, “Eastward, look, the land is bright”. It highlighted the UK Foreign Secretary’s recent remarks that Britain is back East of the Suez and is concerned with military expansionist activities by China from Djibouti to the South China Sea and recognises that the Asia Pacific region contains two of the world’s three largest economies and if the UK wishes to forge new partnerships beyond Europe then this is where it must be. The new aircraft carriers will be at the centre of a Carrier Strike Group including escort surface ships, a submarine and supply ships, and will be expected to deploy on a global basis. New RN base facilities in Bahrain and Oman will act as springboards for more frequent deployments beyond the Gulf and the regeneration of a more globally focused fleet will help to develop closer UK links with allies in the region. The Navy News commentary suggests the Royal Navy will continue to maintain operations beyond the Gulf in the Indian Ocean, where for many years it has been part of the international effort to protect commercial shipping from pirate attacks. The availability, in the next decade, of a new Carrier Strike Group will represent a big increase in RN capability for long-range deployment which will have the support resources to provide a mobile forward air presence, equipped with fifth generation jets, to work alongside allies and also to be there for providing aid and assistance if required following natural disasters. In this relief role, the Queen Elizabeth-class will be able to embark over 40 helicopters, including Merlins, Chinooks and Wildcats. In a Strike Carrier role the normal air complement will be between 24 and 36 F-35B combat jets, with 9 ASW Merlin Mk 2 helicopters, 5 Merlin Crowsnest AEW/ISR radar and communications helicopters and a mix of Merlin Mk 4 and Wildcat helicopters for transport, logistics support and general duties.
The 65,000 ton super carrier has started its ship trials in the North Sea, paving the way for acceptance into service later this year to be followed by the embarkation of a rotary wing squadron and the first fixed wing deck trials and aircraft operations the next year. This is a major step towards the regeneration of UK carrier strike capability, following the retirement of the Invincible-class light aircraft carriers and their Harrier combat jets. The two new QE-class ships are the largest ever warships to be built for the Royal Navy and are destined to provide a significant overseas force projection capability, with a planned 50 year service life. The Royal Navy is anxious to deploy these new carriers with a balanced air group to Asia Pacific waters in due course to demonstrate a wider global defence commitment and to underline its continuing support for regional allies, as was shown earlier this year with the detachment of RAF Typhoons to Malaysia, Japan and South Korea.
The carrier’s four-acre flight deck is seen to good effect in this overhead photo
HMS Queen Elizabeth sailed from her shipyard at Rosyth, Scotland, for the first time in June, for Scapa Flow, to work up sea trials, concentrating on ship systems. All aspects of the ship’s performance are being evaluated and tested, including speed tests and manoeuvrability, along with the ability of the on-board services and facilities to support an embarked ship’s crew and air component strength of up to 1,700 personnel. Such aspects as catering and stores provision will also be put to the test. The ship design includes the most advanced internal automated provisions and weapons storage and delivery systems ever to put to sea, featuring much innovation transferred from the automotive manufacturing and logistics sectors. It is claimed that this will allow very quick operational re-supply of aircraft to maximise sortie rates. After the initial handling and support trials, ship mission systems will be fully tested and some helicopter deck trials have already started. Early next year all aspects of rotary wing flying trials off the ship will commence leading up to fixed-wing flying trials.
In 2010 it was announced that an alternative flight deck and equipment design, featuring conventional arrestor wires, angled deck and EMALS catapults, would be fitted to the second of the two carriers, HMS Prince of Wales, but after a re-appraisal of the operational benefits of conventional versus STOVL combat aircraft operations, it was concluded that higher rates of sortie generation could be achieved, with much lower training and support costs, if both new carriers were built to the original design with embarked F-35Bs, a ski-jump ramp for take-off and a straight through runway, flanked by generous preparation and parking areas. While HMS Queen Elizabeth is now at sea, HMS Prince of Wales is nearing structural completion at Rosyth and fitting-out is underway. Both carriers are built to an identical STOVL optimised layout but such is the flexibility offered by the four-acre flight deck design there is plenty of room for a revised deck if requirements change in the future.
The first British unit to fly the F-35B will be No. 17 Squadron based in the USA to expand experience of operating the type ahead of the build-up in RAF and Royal Navy pilot training alongside the US Marine Corps, who also operate the B model. In 2018, HMS Queen Elizabeth will deploy to the East Coast of the USA to carry out deck handling and operating trials with both UK and USMC embarked F-35Bs. An Initial Operating Capability with the UK STOVL fighters is due next year and in the meantime the home base in England at RAF Marham will have been extensively rebuilt to accommodate what will be a joint training and operating base for F-35Bs. The joint operational conversion unit will be No. 207 Squadron, which has the heritage of being an early naval squadron and later becoming an RAF unit. The first operational F-35B Squadron will be given the famous RAF identity of No. 617, the famous ‘Dam-Busters’, and the second will be No. 809 Naval Air Squadron, which previously flew Buccaneers off HMS Ark Royal, and later, during the Falklands War, Sea Harriers off HMS Hermes and HMS Invincible. These units will be jointly crewed and interchangeable so that squadrons will fly from the carriers and land bases as needed.
The new carriers were built to take up to 60 aircraft and have large deck-edge lifts and spacious hangar space below deck. The lifts can carry a Chinook or two F-35Bs at a time, allowing rapid transfer movement between hangar and deck. The role of vertical lift support for the Royal Marines in the Royal Navy’s amphibious assault force is currently provided by the helicopter carrier HMS Ocean, but the future of this ship is under discussion and that task may be absorbed into the role of the second QEclass aircraft carrier. It is intended that the IOC for the carrier strike combination will come into effect in 2020.
The UK has committed to purchasing an eventual total of 138 F-35Bs, but this is likely to be a lengthy programme to spread out costs. There has been much speculation that the USMC will take up the UK offer of co-deploying its F-35Bs aboard the RN carriers alongside RAF/RN F-35Bs. There will certainly be enough room to take them, and the size of the flight decks will allow for rather more operational sortie generation compared to the restricted decks on the USMC’s own assault helicopter carriers. It is known that the USMC is enthusiastic at the prospect of these joint possibilities, which will be fully tested at sea next year off the US coast. In anticipation of future UK/US joint aircraft carrier operations, more than 60 RN and Royal Marines personnel were involved in August as a part of a giant NATO maritime exercise off the coast of Scotland. They were embedded within the US Nimitz-class super-carrier USS George HW Bush and worked alongside their US counterparts to hone their carrier strike skills ahead of the arrival of HMS Queen Elizabeth in service. The war games were part of Exercise Saxon Warrior, and saw the Commander of the UK Carrier Strike Group, Commodore Andrew Betton, and his team direct fighters, firepower and personnel across the task group for ten days of realistic training. 15 ships, 100 aircraft and over 10,000 personnel took part. This has seen the UK team working with US counterparts to fiht off a series of simulated threats from enemy forces, using all the air, surface and sub-surface assets of the entire task group. These threats were specifically designed to test the UK personnel’s reactions for coordinating a response and were coordinated from the RN Clyde Naval Base.
HMS Queen Elizabeth entering Portsmouth harbour with five Merlin helicopters on deck
The Royal Navy has been planning the re-generation of a large-scale carrier strike capability for many years, and although the versatile VSTOL Sea Harrier provided a very coste-ffective stop gap, the loss of heavyweight naval air power provided in the last era of large RN aircraft carriers, equipped with Buccaneer nuclear bombers and Mach 2 F-4 Phantoms, has been badly missed. The new RN carriers, the most modern anywhere, will soon be able to restore UK global air power projection on a scale more appropriate to today’s dangerous world, and that must be good news for allies near and far.
(Photos: A selection of images of HMS Queen Elizabeth on sea trials in the North Sea, Crown Copyright Royal Navy 2017. Pictures at Portsmouth by the author.)