"The above begs a question (or two). How is "in full service" defined?"
Ken
I suspect it will be a matter of
PR and political smoke and mirrors. "Full Service" looks like fully crewed for sea plus whatever additional bodies are required for the specific task on hand.
I think using the term "Air Wing" in the USN sense is a major (but understandable) mistake - these are not Nimitz's or Fords - but more mobile platforms with a variable role
Even when fully crewed the QE may not always have F-35's embarked - I'd guess the Crowsnest and anti subs helicopters will be on board when she leaves harbour but the other stuff will be on an "as needed" basis. In fact as the two vessels are supposed to replace the "Ocean" and other amphib landing ships sometimes there may be very few aircraft on board at all. The UK can't afford a dedicated full-on aircraft carrier - not even one - the RN are having to borrow engineers from the US Coastguard to run some ships
The real question is the definition of "readiness" of the harbor bound vessel when she's not in refit - given the manning issues across the fleet I suspect it will be a fairly minimum number of technical guys keeping everything on-line and the rest being reservists "on-call" or training on board. I haven't seen any indication of how fast the RN reckon they could return the second vessel to operational service in an emergency.
So the QE's are better than the Illustrious class and with two the RN is ahead of the French Navy - they also give some amphib capacity to replace (but not fully) the other vessels they're selling/have sold off