Inside the state-of-the-art £3.1bn carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth almost ready for action
280M giant is longer than the Houses of Parliament, will carry hi-tech jets and could be commissioned next year
THIS is the £3.1bn aircraft carrier which when completed will be the pride of the British Navy.
HMS Queen Elizabeth is the largest warship ever built for Britain's armed forces, and will soon replace HMS Illustrious, which was decommissioned in 2014.
At a whopping 280m, she is longer than the Houses of Parliament and towers over the dock where she is being built.
When completed she will carry up to 40 aircraft and 250 Royal marines among the total 800 crew. She is expected to be commissioned next year and could be instrumental in the UK's military operations around the world.
A second identical ship, called HMS Prince of Wales, was set to be mothballed, but David Cameron announced in 2014 that construction would continue on the craft.
The ships have attracted controversy for their huge cost, both in raw materials and in manpower needed for their construction.
The original contract awarded for both ships in 2008 was £3.9bn. But delays and spiralling costs mean the project was valued at £6.2bn in November 2013.
Around 5,000 men and women work day and night on the ships at a dock in Rosyth, near Edinburgh in Scotland.
Commander Steve Prest, in charge of weapons engineering on the vessel, told the Evening Standard: “There’s 3.3 million metres of electric cable."
“We handle ammunition on roughly the same method as Amazon do their storage. It’s completely automatic in the deep magazines. It’s only checked by human hand above Deck 5.”
The state-of-the-art warcraft will also house new F-35B jets, which are capable of landing vertically on the deck and do not require the ship to use catapults.
The HMS Queen Elizabeth was named by the Queen in July 2014, and could enter service by 2020.
Britain's fleet has not had an aircraft carrier since the 2014 decommissioning of HMS Illustrious, the last surviving ship from the Falklands War.
With a displacement of 65,000 tonnes, the Queen Elizabeth class carriers will be three times the size of Illustrious.
The Ministry of Defence has welcomed the arrival of these new giants, insisting that aircraft carriers are vital in maintaining Britain's interests abroad.
An MOD spokesperson wrote on the site: "To question why the UK needs an aircraft carrier is to ignore the realities of being a significant player on the global stage with peacetime, wartime and humanitarian responsibilities.
"It’s to disregard the power that a statement of intent makes, the engineering achievements of modern day British shipbuilders – and the long-term benefit that comes with protecting the waters that Britain depends on for its prosperity, resources and raw materials.
"An aircraft carrier backs up the words of its leaders with an indisputable presence – and, when necessary, action."
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