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Further Reading

Queen Elizabeth class
Future Aircraft Carrier CVF (002)

A new larger class of Aircraft Carrier, as a replacement for the three existing Invincible Class ships. Initial estimates are that the ships could be 300 meters long and displace about 40,000 tons capable of carrying up to 50 aircraft, resulting in a ship that would be twice as large as the current Invincible class. As of 2012 the planned displacement had grown to over 65,000 tons, with an air wing that would include 12 F-35C Joint Strike Fighters. These carriers are to be the biggest ships ever built for the Royal Navy.

CVF is a flagship program for the UK and central to the commitment in the Strategic Defence Review to modern, flexible and highly capable forces. The two larger and more capable vessels will replace the current Invincible class aircraft carriers. Assessment work is investigating aircraft carrier design options. These include designs capable of accommodating short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) and conventional take-off and landing (CTOL) aircraft.

They will be conventionally powered. The carrier design taken forward will be dependent on the final choice of aircraft that the UK buys. There are two carrier-borne versions of JSF planned: one taking off using a ski-jump and landing vertically; the other launched with a catapult and landing with the aid of an arrestor wire.

The requirement for the Future Aircraft Carrier (CVF) was endorsed in the Strategic Defence Review (SDR). The need for rapidly deployable forces with the reach and self-sufficiency to act independently of host-nation support confirmed the requirement for aircraft carriers, but SDR also concluded that the ability to deploy offensive air- power would be central to future force projection operations, with carriers operating the largest possible range of aircraft in the widest possible range of roles.

The current Invincible Class of carriers were designed for Cold War anti-submarine warfare operations. With helicopters and a limited air-defence capability provided by a relatively small number of embarked Sea Harriers, it was judged that this capability would no longer meet future UK requirements. It was therefore decided to replace the Invincible Class with two larger and more capable aircraft carriers able to operate up to 50 aircraft, both fixed-wing and helicopters.

It is planned that CVF's offensive air-power will be provided primarily by the Future Carrier Borne Aircraft (FCBA). The carrier air group will also operate the Future Organic Airborne Early Warning (FOAEW) system together with helicopters from all three Services in a variety of roles.

The October 2010 Strategic Defense Review stated that "We will need to operate only one aircraft carrier. We cannot now foresee circumstances in which the UK would require the scale of strike capability previously planned. We are unlikely to face adversaries in large-scale air combat. We are far more likely to engage in precision operations, which may need to overcome sophisticated air defence capabilities. The single carrier will therefore routinely have 12 fast jets embarked for operations while retaining the capacity to deploy up to the 36 previously planned, providing combat and intelligence capability much greater than the existing Harriers. It will be able to carry a wide range of helicopters, including up to 12 Chinook or Merlin transports and eight Apache attack helicopters. The precise mix of aircraft will depend on the mission, allowing the carrier to support a broad range of operations including landing a Royal Marines Commando Group, or a Special Forces Squadron conducting a counterterrorism strike, assisting with humanitarian crises or the evacuation of UK nationals."

On 07 July 2011 a the press briefing from the Prime Minister’s spokesperson "Asked if the Prime Minister had any regrets about scrapping aircraft carriers, the PMS said that the Government thought it had made the right decision. The PMS added that we had inherited a plan to build two aircraft carriers which were not even inter-operable with our closest allies, the US and France, and with contractual obligations which meant that it was almost as expensive to cancel them as it was to build them. What we had been doing was tying to sort out that mess."

As of 2012 it appeared that HMS Queen Elizabeth would be completed in a STOVL configuration by 2016, to conduct trials, and exercises with allied Harriers and F-35B’s. HMS Prince of Wales will then be delivered in 2019 in a cat and trap configuration, entering operational in 2020 the F-35C. Plans are that HMS Queen Elizabeth would go into reserve, and could later be refitted and converted to the CTOL configuration in the 2022 time frame, allowing the Royal Navy to guarantee a British strike carrier [without cooperation with France] 100% rather than 60% of the time.