The £3.1billion HMS Prince Of Wales has returned to its home base in Portsmouth just over a month after it first set sail.
The Royal Navy’s newest aircraft carrier has returned from an eight-day stay in Liverpool where more than 20,000 members of the public had a chance to go onboard and meet some of its 700 sailors.
During the trip the 65,000-tonne warship also carried out training exercises including a crash on deck scenario and a fuel replenishment at sea.
The £3.1billion HMS Prince Of Wales (pictured) returned to its home base in Portsmouth earlier today just over a month after it first set sail
The Royal Navy’s newest aircraft carrier has returned from an eight-day stay in Liverpool where more than 20,000 members of the public had a chance to go onboard and meet some of its 700 sailors
During the trip the 65,000-tonne warship also carried out training exercises including a crash on deck scenario and a fuel replenishment at sea
Following the visit commanding officer Captain Darren Houston said: ‘I am deeply humbled by the incredibly warm welcome we have received and I am delighted to allow members of the public to visit the ship.’
The ship,s crew posted on Twitter: ‘Continuing to generate our operational capability we have now conducted our first replenishment at sea with RFA Tideforce.
‘In future this will help us to stay on operations for longer.’
The number of spectators was limited today compared to the usual turnout to greet returning carriers as many were unable to attend due to government restrictions on mass gatherings to combat coronavirus.
The Prince of Wales, which launched in December 2017, is one of the most powerful surface warships to ever be constructed in the UK
The 919ft carrier, which has been designed to carry 36 fighter planes and four helicopters, can be put into action for work such as high-intensity war fighting or providing humanitarian aid and disaster relief
The Prince of Wales, which launched in December 2017 and has an identical sister shp the HMS Queen Elizabeth, is one of the most powerful surface warships ever constructed in the UK.
The 919ft carrier, which has been designed to carry 36 fighter planes and four helicopters, can be put into action for work such as high-intensity war fighting or providing humanitarian aid and disaster relief.
In December 2019, the Prince of Wales and his wife Camilla attended an official commissioning ceremony to formally welcome the aircraft carrier into the Royal Navy.
Charles, 71, was also given a new title by the Navy of Commodore-in-Chief, Aircraft Carriers.
The Duchess of Cornwall, 72, who is the ship’s sponsor, told around 3,000 people at the ceremony that it is ‘the beginning of an exciting new era in our long naval history’
The HMS Prince of Wales has more than 28,000 rashers of bacon on board the aircraft carrier, as well as 12,000 tins of beans
The Duchess of Cornwall, 72, who is the ship’s sponsor, told around 3,000 people at the ceremony that it is ‘the beginning of an exciting new era in our long naval history’.
She said the carrier ‘joins a Navy which has protected this nation’s shores, and its interests across the globe, for over five centuries’.
She added: ‘The sheer scale and size of HMS Prince of Wales is simply breathtaking.
‘Just to give you a comparison, Clarence House would fit nearly 25 times onto the flight deck. May I say how pleased I am that this great ship shares my husband’s name.
‘And now, as Honorary Commodore-in-Chief, Aircraft Carriers, I am delighted that he will have an even stronger link to this ship and her sister.’
The duchess added that the HMS Prince of Wales, along with its HMS Queen Elizabeth sister carrier, are ‘the largest and most advanced ships ever to fly the White Ensign.
‘We remember, with great sorrow, the loss of the battleship HMS Prince of Wales and so many of her ship’s company off the eastern coast of Malaya on this day in 1941. 78 years on, we now stand proudly before her successor.’
The carrier is the eighth Navy vessel to bear the name HMS Prince of Wales.
The duchess’ role as the carrier’s lady sponsor is ‘akin to being a godmother’, according to a Navy spokesman, and means she will attend significant events ‘during the life of the ship’.
Major upgrade work has been carried out on the jetties at Portsmouth so that the two giant ships can berth next to each other.
Both ships were constructed in Rosyth, Scotland. HMS Queen Elizabeth is the largest and most powerful vessel ever constructed for the Royal Navy. The enormous warship is capable of carrying up to 40 aircraft.
The flight deck of HMS Queen Elizabeth comes in at four acres, equivalent to two football pitches, and will be used to launch the brand new F35s jet. Four jets can be moved from the hangar to the flight deck in one minute.
As well as state-of-the-art weaponry and communications systems, HMS Queen Elizabeth has five gyms, a chapel and a medical centre. She has a top speed of 32 knots (59 km/h) and a range of 10,000 nautical miles (19,000km).
The carrier (pictured returning to its home base in Portsmouth earlier today) is the eighth Navy vessel to bear the name HMS Prince of Wales
The Queen Elizabeth class features both the HMS Queen Elizabeth as well as HMS Prince of Wales
A graphic shows how the Queen Elizabeth class of carriers – which includes two vessels; the HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales – can produce 500 tonnes of fresh water from sea water daily
Prince of Wales’ strike force: Lightning II F-35 fighter jets with speed of 1,200 mph and a killer punch
The HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Queen Elizabeth both have capacity for 36 of the new F35-B Lightning II fighter jets. Here are some facts and figures about the fighter jets which are based at RAF Marham in Norfolk:
– The jet measures 51.2ft (15.6m) in overall length, has a wingspan of 35ft (10.7m) and a height of 14.3ft (4.36m).
– It has a top speed of 1.6 Mach or 1,200 mph, a Max G rating of 7G, and a combat radius of 518 miles (833km).
– Lockheed Martin, the American company building the jet, describes its stealth capabilities as ‘unprecedented’. Its airframe design, advanced materials and other features make it ‘virtually undetectable to enemy radar’.
– Britain has committed to a £9.1 billion programme to buy 48 of the jets by 2025 – with a pledge to purchase 138 – they will be jointly operated by Royal Air Force and Royal Navy pilots.
– The F-35B jets are built from more than 300,000 individual parts.
– The UK’s supersonic aircraft have been based in the US since their manufacture.
– There are six distributed aperture system sensors around the jet – two underneath, two on top of the aircraft and one either side of the nose. These infrared cameras feed real-time information and images into the pilot’s helmet, allowing them to see through the airframe.
– All variants of the jets are mainly constructed on Lockheed Martin’s mile-long production line in Fort Worth, Texas.
– It takes 58,000 man hours to build each F-35B.
– The F-35 can launch from land, and will take off from HMS Queen Elizabeth via the skip jump ramp, which has been designed to optimise the launch.
– Maximum thrust tops 40,000lb and the jet has a range of 900 nautical miles.
– The jet is capable of two types of ship landing – vertically on to the deck, and also through the shipborne rolling vertical landing, which using forward air speed, allows the aircraft to bring back several thousand pounds of extra weight to the ship.
– The warplanes will carry out missions from the two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers – HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales.
– Lockheed Martin said across the 3,000 jets being built, 15% of each one is comprised of parts from British companies.
– Some of the UK companies with contracts to produce parts of jets includes Rolls-Royce, BAE Systems, Ultra Electronics, Selex, Cobham and GE Aviation.
– Lockheed Martin UK chief executive Peter Ruddock said that, to date, the F-35 programme has generated 13.5 billion dollars in contracts for British suppliers.
– HMS Queen Elizabeth weighs 65,000 tonnes and has a top speed of 25 knots, its flight deck is 919ft (280m) long and 230ft (70m) wide – enough space for three football pitches.