Hammond appeared to end the debate, saying the RN would “routinely embark 12 jets when deployed outside home waters with an ability to surge that number higher in periods of tension.”
When outside of home waters I can understand how getting extra aircraft out to the ship would be a straight forward task, but what about the supporting ground crews. Would she always deploy with the maximum complement of handlers, engineers etc and if so is that over staffing the ship?
If they only deploy with the required numbers to both operate and service the twelve fixed wing aircraft then would the ship have to at the very least get within helicopter range of a friendly country to fly out the necessary support staff?