HMS Queen Elizabeth Commissioned.
 

I enjoyed the subtitles.
Particularly when "28 Naval Airmen" became "28 neighbour lemon"!

Subtitles ?! Not sure where they came from . Technology ain't wot it used to be. Must be fake news :)

Did anyone else note the nylon ensign? They used to be woven with each colour on a separate piece and sewn together.

The Russian comment about a nice fat target seems to have some logic to it. Probably been discussed before but I wonder why we did not have more, smaller, through-deck whatevers instead

Yes, the Russian comment is a typical response but it works both ways - their rotten Kuznetsov is equally as vulnerable and the West have the means to sink her if required. IF anyone had the balls to attack QNLZ or USS Ford, then it’s all-out conflict again and everything is fair game. I’d also say that a considerable number of defence measures would to have be overcome for that to happen.

Oh, and killing T-50s would be a complete turkey shoot with F-22 and F-35. I also think the UK diversifying their F-35 to a shore-based element (F-35A) is a good idea. IF the Carrier was sunk, you don’t lose all your eggs (cough, Atlantic Conveyor, cough)

So . . . we're going to call it a 'carrier' on account we've got no aircraft for it . . .

Never considered a helicopter to be an aircraft (unless it was dragging me out of the ****).

Congratulations, you win a subscription to the Daily Fail, for repeating their nonsense. We currently have 14 F-35Bs as of this month and more on the way. 617sqn stands up next year, will you and the others still be spouting that nonsense then?

How about a historical parallel, when the previous generation of RN Carriers arrived on the scene it was the same. HMS Invincible started her builders trials in 1979, but there were no active Sea Harrier sqns ready to fly from her deck. Just a trials unit (700A NAS) with a handful of airframes (less than the number of F-35Bs we have now.

Calamity Calamity! We have no planes to fly from our new carrier! Said nobody actually. People had a bit more sense back then apparently.

Invincible commissioned in 1980 along with the first Sea Harrier frontline sqn (800NAS) and all was well.

We [I]did[I] have a force of aircraft ready to fly from the QECs decks, Joint Force Harrier. We spent a £Billion upgrading the 74 airframes to GR9 standard to see them through to the early 2020s if needed, and just as the last few emerged from the factory with the paint still wet, the Disaster Twins Cameron and Osbourne threw them away for scrap value. If you want to point fingers, there you go.

And the RAF who decided they'd rather have their Tornado force than a Harrier force

I have absolutely no idea what the papers say because I don't read their biased ****.

However, Mr Putin does have a point, it's a bloody big target and we don't have the support ships or Maritime Patrol aircraft to protect it.

Bloody great white elephant. Wow, 14 fighters? That many?

Politicians and gutless senior officers in the Armed Forces have overseen the disasters that plague this country. What role is this magnificent very pale elephant going to fulfil then?

https://www.pprune.org/military-avia...costs-235.html

has 235 pages and 4600++ posts of discussion which can be summed as

A. It will put us in the Big League again and give us immense power projection capabilities - worth every penny

B. It's the biggest turkey ever built and will drain what is left of the blood of the Navy like Dracula

Those F35 are among the 250 odd with the manufacturing defect and good for the airshow circuit then?

RN should have put their hand in their pocket then. After all it was them who wanted GR rather than FA..

How about some hard facts for a change please? As of this morning, what is the fire power of HMS Queen Elizabeth? What offensive weapons system are on board and functional? What aircraft are available with crews to operate from her and what offensive weapons are they trained and cleared to deliver?

I suspect the answer is very little and that the situation will remain this way for years. One might as well hoist 14 British Army M270s aboard to beef up its hitting power!

Nope. You forgot about the ££££££££££ deck coating...

Struggling to find a sensible response to this, but I am afraid all I can do is roll on the floor laughing.

Sadly I fear that the idea of having two big carriers like that is totally misplaced. Where will all the staff to man them come from? I predict that we will never see both in commission at the same time. As was said earlier what we really needed was another three carriers to replace the three we just scrapped. They were about the right size to be capable of being deployed to incidents (Disasters as well as conflicts) world wide.
Remember too that the Royal Navy is not just about carriers, we also need to man up one or two frigates and smaller vessels too!

2300 posts on the other thread agree with you and 2300 disagree (saying the whole point of T45's is to defend carriers etc etc)

Surely a target is a threat, and a Carrier without any aircraft is not a threat, simply a large RN cruise ship

Last Wednesday, QNLZ was still an 'industrial site' run by a civilian trials master with contractors embarked and civilian working rules applied. Her service personnel weren't even allowed booze or family visitors on board. She had undergone basic harbour and sea trials to check she could float, move, navigate, communicate and satisfy the myriad conditions laid down by SOLAS, the H&SE and dozens of other international and national agencies; also that her onboard systems could accommodate and sustain the hundreds of people manning her at sea.

On Thursday, QNLZ was accepted by the RN as a vessel satisfying these basic requirements and work will start in the New Year to make her ready to accept aircraft and operate them safely including the embarkation and storage of fuel, ordnance and the extra manpower involved. Volumes of trials schedules, running to tens of thousands of pages, will take many busy months to complete before she achieves full operational status in 2023 for a career stretching 40 or 50 years into the future.

The UK takes delivery of its 14th F-35B this month and has had RN and RAF personnel in the USA being trained in their operation and maintenance for several years. More F-35Bs, containing the latest software updates and hardware, are in the pipeline. Despite all this, much 'opinionated ignorance' will still be expressed about QNLZ's lack of fixed wing aircraft even though she is not yet licensed to receive them, let alone ready to operate and maintain them.