Warning on new aircraft carriers.
 

The Major Projects Authority (MPA) has given 32 projects a red or amber/red rating, meaning they are deemed unachievable or in doubt.

Red projects include two £7bn aircraft carriers dogged by delays.

The Cabinet Office welcomed the report and said it would lead to improvements.
The MPA was established in 2010 in a bid to turn around the civil service's "lamentable record" of delivering large schemes.
Its report warns that billions of pounds of public money could be at risk because of delays and inefficiencies in delivering key projects.

BBC News - Warnings over flagship projects

Oh dear, that'll cause Sharkey to cough up his rum.....:\

I was told by a staff member in a military museum. The first carrier has endless issues about the engines. The second is a massive bath-tub containing rain water. That was this March.:ooh:

It is my expectation, that the current 'Depression'(yes that is the correct term, not recession). Will reach it's perigee, or lowest point, sometime in 2014.

In conclusion, work will be stopped on the two carriers at this time.
As it was on the liners Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, during 1934.

It's good to see the Senior Service keeping up with tradition.

No winners here
 

OK don't blame posters for enjoying the news but no one wins here not even the arseholes at BAE.

The ships will get built, probably quite badly, the MOD will barely be able to afford the aircraft, the crews will get little flying and the ships will be limited to a couple of exercises a year, they might even get as far as Florida but more likely will spend most of their service lives in port.

BAE will establish themselves worldwide as the defence contractor of last resort, orders will dry up and jobs lost.

Last time I looked BAE were just one of two prime contractors on this project (WTF??). Is this still the case, or are BAE somehow more to blame than the Thales lot?

The problems are probably far more to do with the habitual incompetence in mis-specifying the specs and repeated changing of specs by the MoD than anything wrong with BAE's engineering. Its the usual confusion arising from order, counter-order, disorder.

Two are being built but one will be immediately mothballed. The Gov wanted to cancel the contract two years ago, but by cancelling would have cost more than the anticipated total spend!

considering the probability of the aircraft arriving, are you sure its just one that will be mothballed?

https://www.gov.uk/government/upload..._gmpp_data.ods

Since I'm not a Windows or MS Excel user I've posted the open-office format link. :-) This is the parent page:

https://www.gov.uk/government/public...a-for-mod-2013

Here is the extract about the carriers:


Project name: QEC Aircraft Carriers
Department: MOD
MPA RAG rating
(A Delivery Confidence Assessment of the project at a fixed point in time, using a five-point scale, Red – Amber/Red – Amber – Amber/Green – Green; definitions in the MPA Annual Report):
Red
Description / aims:
The programme will deliver two Queen Elizabeth Class Aircraft carriers, configured to operate Short Take-off and Vertical Landing (STOVL) aircraft. The carriers will form an integral part of the UK's Carrier Strike capability.
Departmental narrative, actions on Delivery Confidence Assessment :
Assembly of HMS Queen Elizabeth at Rosyth is progressing well with over 38,000 tonnes of ship in the dock at Rosyth. The ship will be largely structurally complete by the end of this year and she will be “floated-out” next year. Construction of HMS Prince of Wales is also well underway, with all the lower block units in build and centre blocks 03 and 04. The RAG assessment is largely owing to ongoing re-baselining encompassing a wide range of factors (e.g. build strategy, implications of STOVL reversion decision) that need to be considered. Once this work has completed, the Department will seek re-approval of the programme in 2013.
Project - start date 12/01/1998
Project - end date 12/01/2018
Departmental narrative on schedule, including any deviation from planned schedule :
Project is currently being re-baselined and as a result we will be updating our previously agreed dates once this work has concluded. We expect Sea Trials for the first ship to begin in 2017, followed by Flying Trials with the Lightning II aircraft in 2018 and achievement of Initial Operating Capability in 2020. Dates will be confirmed as part of project re-approval in 2013.
2012/13 Budget (£million) 657.723 2012/13 Forecast (£million)
658.500
Total budgeted whole life costs (£million)
(including non-government costs)
Departmental narrative on budget/forecast variance for 2012/13
(if variance is more than 5%)
Not required as variance is with +/- 5%.
Departmental narrative on budgeted whole life costs

Thank you t43562. That puts a rather different perspective on the alarmist headlines.

Seriously Stuffy lighten up mate!

Can you point me to the bit in the report saying the Carriers are Lemons. I don't really think some bloke in a military museum is going to know stuff all about the carrier build.

I imagine QE probably has quite a bit of water in it too. The blocks are stored outside when delivered up at Roysth. I suggest rather than relying on the third hand heresay you peruse this

Flickr: QEClassCarriers' Photostream

How can the 'engines' be problematical when they haven't finished building them yet? The generators are Rolls Royce MT30's and they've only just installed the first one. The Diesels are Wärtsilä 38 diesels. The US LCS first of class has had problems and that has MT30 in but a) it's a totally different design b) it's a 40 knot speedster c) the Americans don't really use electric drive propulsion so FOC and 'new' technology to them and I'm not suprised they are having problems. We do use electric drive propulsion and well basically are not the Yanks.


I imagine that the transmission is the problem not the generators themselves which are based on the engines in the 777, or those dropping out of the sky regularly?

I think it's fairly clear that quite a 'bit' of water ingress is to be expected.


I mean the carrier build was delayed, then changed from STOVL to Cats and Traps and then back again all of that mucks about with the schedule and costs lots of money. The one year 'delay' cost 1 billion quid.

I can't imagine any report would be too favourable to the political and civil service led f'up'. I suggest you look up the evidence given to the Public Accounts Committee by Jon Thompson, Permanent Secretary, Bernard Gray, Chief of Defence Materiel and Air Marshal Stephen Hillier, Deputy Chief of Defence Staff, Military Capability, Ministry of Defence. Regarding the 2010 decision to get a flavour of what that report is talking about.

None of this is suprise. The report is basically re-repeating a bunch of stuff that everyone has known about since the moronic decision to fart about with an in build program that was taken in 2010. I really don't know why we now have to have four different reports/comittees basically all re-repeating information thats been known for the last three years.

It's nothing to worry about overly much the MOD structure has already been completely altered and DES is/will change a lot this is all out of the back end of the Gray Report which was published in 2009! We will only now how successful that has been at the end of the 10 year equipment plan (which includes the carriers).

En-lightning
 

Photostream link is a very useful source of authoritative info such as ...

HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Because it enables hundreds, perhaps thousands of parasitic civil servants to justify their worthless existences and claim their gigantic index linked final salary pensions that WE are all paying for.

Not CS myself, but saying

is just plain stupid, head up your ar$e stuff.

'They' are also 'we'; their job is to try and enact government policy to the best of their ability, all whilst government policy bends in the wind to the 'will of the people' or their close advisors anyway.
I believe the boats should have followed catapult launch and arrested landing if only to open up interoperability ad accommodate all the other elements that make up a balanced force. The military adisors who set the specification have gone down a rabbit hole, tried to turn round only to find the exit blocked by a fall of detritus. Maybe it is embarrassing for the long trousered brigade to hear 'I told you so' time and again.

67Wing,
I like the comments.

It is amazing what can be done with photoshop.

Civil Servants also live in a virtual world.

We'll definitely get one and I am fairly confident that we will get 2 carriers - which will allow us to have one permanently at sea.

This will give us a pretty impressive piece of kit that can do a lot of things pretty well. It won't be a Nimitz-like strike carrier but it will be far more than Illustrious/Ark/Invincible ever were. Anything wildly divergent from this, such as all carriers cancelled, JSF cancelled, 2 carriers with 24 jets on each simultaneously is wild fantasy land, imho.

The QEC will be extremely impressive and useful, but for me the important question is will they be better than 10 FFs or 20 small FFs/corvettes? Still not sure.

NB: I have nothing to do with either the carrier or JSF programmes so this is all personal opinion from open source - which hopefully everything on PPRuNe is!

Three carriers at sea together
 

This one wasn't photo-shopped:

http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/1...e3carriers.jpg

Aren't they through-deck cruisers? ;)

Backwards PLT,

Indeed they might be. Useful just the same, and affordable.

I suggest the BBC is being used by someone to make a point.

I doubt the articles are inaccurate.

BBC News - Carrier fighter jet U-turn cost £74m, says audit office