I was not the only one to note the lack of a paying off pennant then! Cutbacks!
I always thought that the MOD’s desire to keep her intact and in UK hands seemed odd – they have not shown any desire to preserve ships from other classes that also have thousands of former crew such as a Type 42 or Type 22. Additionally the UK does not have a good record of preserving warships as museums – sadly including ship from World War Two.
On a more practical note, where will her flight deck party go? The number of RN/RFA ships than can operate multiple helicopters is very low so where do they go? How do we give people the experience of a busy flight deck or operating multiple aircraft from a ship? Preparing people for a busy flight deck is a very important part of preparing for CVF.
How will we do any thing like
Exercise Deep Blue – surely it would be better to continue conducting major ASW exercises with a large number of helicopters? A few months ago MOD announced that to prevent a loss of skills in between the Sea King Asacs7 and Crowsnest, a small number of Sea Kings
would remain in service post 2016 – but what will they fly from? Flight deck and hangar space seems to be at a premium.