Tag Archives: aircraft carrier

A Broken Aircraft Carrier

The Royal Navy has recently commissioned two new aircraft carriers. At 60,000 tons, they are the largest ships the Navy has ever had. The first is HMS Queen Elizabeth and the second is HMS Prince of Wales. The Prince of Wales was due to undertake its first major exercise off the east coast of the US but, shortly after departing Portsmouth, it experienced some technical issues. I don’t know whether there is official confirmation of what happened but there is a suggestion that one of the screws contacted the seabed.

Whatever the issue, she had to return to port and the Queen Elizabeth was substituted for the exercise. There has been discussion that the ship will need to go to Rosyth for dry docking but, as of our visit, it was still alongside at Portsmouth. I was able to get some good shots of it from Spinnaker Tower as well as some from the ferry as we headed to the Isle of Wight. I hope they can fix whatever the issues are rapidly.

Bremerton From Above

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Bremerton’s naval yard has been cleared out a bit in the last few years. It used to be the resting place of a bunch of decommissioned aircraft carriers. Most have now gone to the breaker’s yard. If you drove into Bremerton, it was quite something to come along the shore and see all of those carriers in front of you. Many years ago, I was on a trip that included a flight from Seattle. We climbed out over the top of Bremerton, and I was able to grab a quick couple of shots through the window of the airliner. I do wish I had got some better shots of the carriers lined up before they all went away.

Aircraft carrier

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I was flicking through some old shots that weren’t well keyworded and was surprised to find some shots from a San Diego visit which included some warships. I had some shots of an aircraft carrier including a few for a panorama that I had never compiled. Why not correct that? Here it is, the USS Ronal Reagan.

HMS Queen Elizabeth

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One leg of our trip to the UK included a ferry to the Isle of Wight. We took the ferry from Portsmouth and, as we drove in to town, I thought I could see the twin islands of the HMS Queen Elizabeth, the first of the pair of new aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy. Sure enough, when we pulled out of Gunwharf on the ferry, we could see the carrier moored in the naval base. A rear view doesn’t give to much impression of the ship but she is clearly pretty large. At about 65,000 tons, she is over three times the displacement of the previous RN carriers.