Forums Forums Wirral Information What's On Wirral HMS Ark Royal in the Mersey

For those that are intrested there is a program called warship on channel 5 at 9pm this evening .it is about illustrious and provides a behind the scenes look at life aboard a carrier

thats an awesome picture paul

good picture there paul

I've had to work under that Bow many a time but still haven't got onboard. The queue was 2 hours and by the time I got there the queue was closed!

Ark Royal IIRC is currently going through FOST once thats done she can rejoin the fleet and then regain Flagship status.

I was surprised how small she looked against the Liverpool skyline. When Illustrious adn Ark Royal were berthed in Pompey line astern they looked huge!

As for the Harriers, Thet're proven in combat, are still doing a damn good job in Afghanistan and at the momnet are the ONLY STOL aircraft in service today. The US have spent years trying to get their modern replacemnt working and are still struggling!

The dry dock for the new carriers (CVF) have begun construction in Scotland....They will be big.

As for the series Warship...I've enjoyed it so far, I has glamourised ship life....believe me alot of the time is dull and mundane!

A good insight into ship life is here:

http://www.hms-somerset-co.blogspot.com/

Although it is still politicised a bit.

one more

Its not the size that matters its how you use it

Cracking pics tho.

The QE2 is nearly 300ft Longer

You have to rememebr, she is 30 years old.

The Americans always have to do it bigger and better. Their downfall is that their carriers drag the Aircraft of the runway witht hat ski lift thing, whereas Our little beauty Lets the planes do it themselves, with that 9 degree lip on the end.

The New Aircraft Carrier series will be bigger however, just wait for them to come into service

And the disadvanage ? those american carriers can lanch and land planes at the same time (if they choose to) and there take off rate is near enough 2 times faster than the brittish carrier, mind u..... the brittish pilota are probly sitting around supping cups of tea !

IIRC it all goes back to the 2nd World War where the US ships needed to be bigger as they needed greater range, and needed to carry bigger planes further before the planes could reach their target with their own fuel.

The British ships where smaller, cheaper, and more agile as they didn have to patrol such a big area.

Now with VTOL planes, and the payloads they can carry, huge runways arnt really needed on carriers...

junk

At £200+/ton for junk at the moment, its almost worth scuttling it one night and taking it to be weighed in

Almost spoken like a true Birkonian!!

"checks the lead on the roof"!!

Check the electicity in your house first - copper is where its at