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Old 26th Aug 2011, 15:33
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WE Branch Fanatic
 
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Progress is been made with construction - the first(?) super block has been safely transported to Rosyth.

This 8,000-tonne segment – Lower Block 03 to give it its official title – of the ship was towed 600 miles around the Scottish coast from one great artery, the Clyde, to another, the Forth, during a five-day operation. It safely arrived early on Saturday evening.

It took shipwrights at BAE Systems’ Govan yard two years to complete the section, which is more than 20 metres (65ft) high, 60 metres (196ft) long and 40 metres (131ft) wide. In addition to machinery spaces, it contains cabins for more than 150 members of the ship’s company and part of the vast hangar.

Lower Block 03 is the latest section of the 65,000-tonne warship to be built in six shipyards around the UK and transported to the Forth.

One of the largest cranes in the UK – its span is 120m (393ft) and it’s 68m (223ft) to the underside of the main beam – Goliath has been assembled in Rosyth to move sections of Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales weighing up to 1,000 tonnes each. It’s due to be ready to start work next month.


And here is another one, built on the Tyne.

YOU wait three years for Britain’s next generation aircraft carrier to take shape and then two massive sections are finished in a week…

Just days after the largest segment yet of HMS Queen Elizabeth was towed up the Forth, another huge section of the ship has been unveiled down the East Coast on Tyneside.

The carrier’s hangar was turned into a function room for an official reception to celebrate the completion of Centre Block 03, a 3,000-tonne piece of the carrier which comprises some of its flight deck and cavernous hangar among other compartments.

The 63-metre-long (206ft) block stands six metres (20ft) tall and is 40 metres (131ft) wide. It’s taken 18 months and half a million man hours to complete – and was finished five weeks ahead of schedule by shipwrights at A&P in Hebburn, the last yard on the Tyne building warships.

A&P won a £55m order to build segments of Queen Elizabeth and her sister Prince of Wales – it’s one of six yards involved in the mammoth shipbuilding programme.


Meanwhile: Ministers reconsider mothballing carrier


Last edited by WE Branch Fanatic; 28th Aug 2011 at 18:28.
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