UK Defence Forum

QEC eye..... official RN feed 1 hr, 56 mins in.

Miss it today
Is there a recording of today event somewhere.?

cyrilranch wrote:Miss it today
Is there a recording of today event somewhere.?

Queen arrives at 1:17:40

Excellent video worth watching.

I remember BBC News somewhat lacking in its coverage of QE’s arrival in Portsmouth a few months back and annoyingly they seem to have repeated that today. Although they covered it, it seemed to only focus on the price tag attached to her and even then the reports were often full of incorrect facts (the no aircraft line being frequently stated). That combined with the One Show featuring that so called “expert” last night made it disappointing coverage and I expected better tbh. I’ve just seen Alistair Bunkell’s Sky News report on the event and it’s certainly better put together. Bunkall mentions the 13 UK jets we already have as being part of an intitial order of 48 and deals with the no planes myth early. He gives the price tag - and of course any correspondent is right in doing this - it’s an important fact, but I think he mentioned it in the correct context. With the BBC it felt like; “oh look at this waste of £3billion it could be better spent, here look at this report on the NHS”, Bunkall looks at the wider picture. The wider picture being that this is a large amount of money in a defence budget that has been squeezed by the treasury, it need not be a balancing act if the forces were correctly funded in relation to what they’re expected to do. He even managed to interview Gavin Williamson who stated that he would fight for more money and even got a chance to speak to Dr. Julian Lewis who did not mince his words when laying the blame at the feet of the Treasury and even went further in saying that UK needed to aim for 3% GDP spending on defence.

By now I know we all realise that a serious increase in defence spending is incredibly unlikely but I’m glad that Sky has given airtime to the dire state of the budget and has helped in putting the issue of needing more money further into the public eye as its definitely a topic that goes unspoken of when compared to other budgets. Sorry to give a review too but I just felt the BBC really let the RN and the UK Armed Forces down today

QEC Eye in the SKY wrote:

Dahedd wrote:

QEC Eye in the SKY wrote:
I missed that. Do you have any pictures?

Sorry mate no. I was watching the RN feed on FB. Second last group of officers to leave had one lass in a blue US uniform at the front & another at the back. Not USN or USMC & unlikely I'd have thought to be USAF so I'm assuming Coast Guard given the blue dress uniforms.

Cheers. I'll have a look around to see if there's anything out there. I know that the French had their Admiral of the French fleet present, so USN and USMC - especially as we'll be working closely with them over the next few years towards full carrier capability - could conceivably be there.

Your first post page 456 QEC left picture on The Royal Family twitter , left of Her Majesty 2nd row , is that a USAF uniform ? Regards

Several clips on YouTube.

SKB wrote:

We are very proud to finally show off our work using the BMT ENGAGE training platform to support BAE Systems and the Royal Navy.

Just watched this and it is a seriously impressive simulator. I did notice they had some settings for 'Xbox Controller', I wonder if they have also coded in a secret 'Zombie Mode'!

SKB wrote:

A very nice souvenir for the plank-owners.

QE's hangar is now back to normal. Note the new builders nameplate plaques on the hangar doors.

Yeah, no aircraft....

(Sorry I couldn't resist, I just couldn't)

I take it the little lifts we can see on the hangar floor are to do with the HMWHS?

RichardIC wrote:Yeah, no aircraft....

(Sorry I couldn't resist, I just couldn't)

No need to appologise for stating the obvious.

im not saying its a small space far from it but looking at the hangar you would have thought it would have been larger to fit 23 f35 in and work around space ,they are not small planes like the harrier ,maybe its just the camera angle and looks a hell of a lot bigger if you in it

inch wrote:im not saying its a small space far from it but looking at the hangar you would have thought it would have been larger to fit 23 f35 in and work around space ,they are not small planes like the harrier ,maybe its just the camera angle and looks a hell of a lot bigger if you in it

CATOBAR version but still the same hanger. Looks pretty tight, you wont have any room to move around if it is packed with 23 F35Bs.

Aye you would have thought they would have made a little larger to make life easier to move things about and maintainability on the f35 ,looks like my single garage that I can push car in but can't open the doors to get out of lol ,esp when people said steel was cheap on the build ,ah. Well it is what it is and a lot better than we had I quests

Nimitz class does have larger hangar, but Not MUCH different, I guess. (the figure shown "much dense" orientation of air crafts, than those shown in QNLZ case).

So even with 24 plus Merlins deck parking will be required?

seem to remember qe hangar could take 2 type 23 frigates on pictures but looking at Nimitz that's like hms ocean or a French mistral class in the hangar ,big difference if you see a pic sailing next to each other even if you think of 2 type 23 stuck together lol,not surprising really a Nimitz is a lot bigger ship 1/3 bigger .yes I think rn going to have to have a lot of deck parking to have merlin on board and do maintainance on the f35 in the hangar.dont think a problem in good weather not sure how it will affect carrier operations in bad weather tho.guess that's why its best to have as large a hangar as you can build .just my take on the situ folks

Bear in mind those are Hornets in that Nimitz image. Substantially thinner than an F-35B.

There was always going to be deck parking, but thats a given. A day when absolutely zero flights take place will be a rare one after all, there'll always be something out there.

F35 is a little wider than F18C/D with folded wing. Compared to F18E/F folded, similar in size. I think F35 is a bit small fighter.

good job we don't have su fighters prob only get 15 in hangar lol

forgot to ask but what was the size of hms ocean hangar although I know wasn't built to operate planes as such ? thanks

Before the QE, Ocean's hangar was the largest in any UK carrier ever. Larger than the Invincibles.

As for storing aircraft on deck, where have you guys been for the past 75 years? It's been a very long time since a UK carrier could store all of its aircraft below.