The Requirement
The three INVINCIBLE Class aircraft carriers were designed for Cold War anti-submarine warfare operations in the North Atlantic. Their limited air group means they would be unable to fulfil the increasingly challenging demands of the new strategic environment and they are, in any case, coming to the end of their expected life.
In 1998, the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) announced plans to replace the current INVINCIBLE class of aircraft carrier with two larger, more capable vessels that could operate a much more powerful air group. Successive operations in the Gulf and Bosnia demonstrated that aircraft carriers play a key role in force projection, contributing to peacekeeping and, when necessary, military action at a time and a place of our choosing. Aircraft carriers offer both a coercive presence worldwide that can help contribute to conflict prevention and a flexible and rapidly deployable base during operations where airfields are unavailable, or facilities ashore are still being established. This analysis was further endorsed by the New Chapter work of 2002 and re-enforced in the Defence White Paper in December 2003.
Future Capability
The Queen Elizabeth (QE) Class aircraft carriers will deploy offensive air power in support of the full spectrum of future operations. This will be provided by a Joint Force Air Group (JFAG) which primarily consists of a combination of the Joint Combat Aircraft (JCA) and the Maritime Airborne Surveillance and Control (MASC) system. JCA/MASC will be capable of operating in all weathers, day and night, to provide carrier strike, as well as air defence for the carrier and offensive support for ground forces ashore. The JFAG will also operate helicopters and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) from all three Services in a variety of roles that could include anti-submarine/anti-surface warfare, attack and support. The Short Take-Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL) variant of the Lockheed Martin F35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) remains the optimum solution to meet the UK’s JCA requirement. The carriers will also be able to operate GR9 Harriers.
To maximise the flexibility that the QE Class carriers can offer over its service life, they will be built to an innovative adaptable design. Though they will be built with a ramp and associated equipment to operate the STOVL F35 aircraft, they are, essentially, a Carrier Variant (CV) aircraft based design. If required, post-JSF, the design means that they are able to be modified (in refit) to operate aircraft requiring a catapult launch and arrested recovery.
Design
Carrier design is an exceptionally complex three-dimensional puzzle in which flight deck, hangar deck, stability and sea-keeping requirements interact. Initial studies for the QE Class encompassed six different candidate ships across a range of capabilities and aircraft types and led to the adoption of the technologically advanced, innovative and highly capable “Design Delta”, centred on MOD’s choice of the STOVL (short take-off and vertical landing) Joint Combat Aircraft (JCA).
The adaptability of Design Delta is unique and has involved extensive modelling, computer analysis and tank tests.
Some of the innovations in the design include:
- First adaptable design that, while configured to operate STOVL aircraft, can be altered later in its projected 40-50 year service life to accommodate catapults and arrestor gear to fly conventional CV (Carrier Variant) aircraft;
- Location of main engines high in the ship, reducing penetration of large downtakes and exhausts deep in the hull;
- First full integrated waste management system to meet projected future environmental standards;
- First carrier with split “island” superstructure - improving control of flight deck operations.
The Aircraft Carrier Alliance has worked exhaustively to achieve value for money. The result is a design capable of operating more than twice as many larger and heavier aircraft compared with existing Invincible class – but carrying a similar sized crew – and with increased strategic capability.
HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales will displace about three times as much as an Invincible, have four times the internal hull volume, have 75 percent more unrefuelled range and accommodation to the very latest and highest standards.