RE: HMS Prince of Wales: PH Meets

RE: HMS Prince of Wales: PH Meets

Thursday 25th October 2018

HMS Prince of Wales: PH Meets

Turns out Land Rover supplies the ship's captain with a car. Excuse enough for a look around...



When it comes to numbers, few are keener on statistics than car enthusiasts. Then you meet the crew, engineers and brains behind HMS Prince of Wales and realise cars pale into the ether compared to the UK's second Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carrier.

Some of the headline numbers are to be expected, such as an all-up weight of 65,000 tonnes that makes it the second biggest aircraft carrier type in the world. The flight deck is 280-metres long and 70-metres wide, which is enough to fit in three football pitches to give an idea of scale. And it can clip along at 25 knots when both 33-tonne propellers are at full tilt.

To enable that considerable top speed, there are twin 11.2-megawatt V16 diesel engines that do the bulk of the drudge work to power the ship, but to reach that impressive maximum rate there are twin Rolls-Royce Marine Trent turbine engines producing 36MW apiece. These turbines are only used for fast cruising as they are less efficient than the diesels and also have their own secondary fuel refinement system as they need a purer form of diesel to operate.


On top of that lot, there's another pair of turbodiesel engines to give a total power output of 118 MW - or in car terms, 160,000hp. A different way to look at the amount of power being generated under full steam is that HMS Prince of Wales could power a town the size of Swindon. It carries enough fuel onboard to cover 10,000 nautical miles, which is around 11,500 miles on land.

All of this information is becoming more familiar to the crew, headed by Commodore Stephen Moorhouse who took formal command of the ship last month. Until then, it was more of a highly specialised, and classified, building site at the Rosyth Naval Dockyard in Fife, Scotland. PH was lucky enough to be given a tour of the ship as Land Rover (who else?) provides a car for the Captain to use when onshore. Hundreds of shipbuilders and trades are still fitting out HMS Prince of Wales, but it will come in cheaper and quicker to build than its sister, the HMS Queen Elizabeth. Captain Moorhouse explains: "The total budget for both of the Navy's new aircraft carriers is £6.2 billion. However, Queen Elizabeth was effectively a prototype build, so everything we've learned from that has been incorporated into Prince of Wales. This means the second ship is 20 per cent cheaper and faster to build. Simple things such as knowing how to route cabling and piping for the second ship greatly improves the process, especially when there are 364,000 metres of pipework onboard."

The Royal Navy took command of the ship at the start of September because the operations room was ready for 'flashing up'. This gives the crew the chance to test many of the systems that make it operate as a ship. That includes the Long Range Radar that can track up to 1,000 objects in the sky within a 250-mile radius. To give an idea of the accuracy of this, Captain Moorhouse says: "We can keep an eye on objects as small as a snooker ball 20 miles away traveling at up to 2,300mph, so it helps when spotting incoming threats."


Not many will intimidate the HMS Prince of Wales. When fully kitted, it will fulfill its primary role as home to 36 Lockheed Martin F35B Lightning II fighter jets. These aeroplanes are stored in the main hangar under the flight deck and a pair of lifts can each have four aircraft up on deck within 60 seconds. The deck is treated with an aluminium and titanium compound to stop it melting under the extreme temperatures and forces created when the F35B's perform a vertical take-off. There's also a 13-degree ramp to help with conventional take-offs.

Supporting the F35B jets are four Merlin Crowsnest helicopters that provide radar information and double as an air-sea rescue support should one of the jets encounter problems.

The jets really are the heart of the ship and its reason for being, and Captain Moorhouse is particularly proud of the weapons handling system. He says: "On our US counterparts' large aircraft carriers, it takes around 350 crew to operate and arm their fighter jets. We do it with a team of 60 because of the Highly Mechanised Weapons Handling System that uses 'moles' to retrieve munitions from the arsenal and deliver them to the flight deck. Essentially, it works on the same principle as modern giant warehouses. We select what we need and it's delivered to the prep room."


With greater automation used in every area of HMS Prince of Wales over previous Royal Navy aircraft carriers, it has a crew of around 700. That increases to as many as 1,600 if the ship is heading into a 'hot' area and includes space for 250 Royal Marines.

Supporting all of this is a kitchen stocked with enough food for 45 days at sea and provides meals for the entire crew within 45 minutes when necessary.

There's also an onboard pharmacy, dentist, surgery and operating theatre, post office and prison cells should anyone get out of line. The more usual sleeping quarters are divided into 1,600 bunks spread across 470 cabins and all are soundproofed to help the crew get a decent kip.


Amid all of the facts and figures that make up HMS Prince of Wales, one of the most impressive is that it will have taken just eight years to go from the first cut of metal in 2011 to the day it squeezes out of the Rosyth dock in September 2019. Captain Moorhouse says: "It's a remarkable feat to build the most modern aircraft carrier in the world in that time. And perhaps even more notable is that HMS Prince of Wales will have an operational life of 50 years. It used to be said the people who would decommission a ship had yet to join the Navy. Now, we say those people have not even been born."







Author
Discussion

slipstream 1985

Original Poster:

12,127 posts

178 months

Thursday 25th October 2018
quotequote all
It is very cool and something we should be doing is building large military ships to export. Just dial the tech back on them for who we are selling to. Easy big ticket money for the country and keeps alot of people in jobs.

Chestrockwell

2,624 posts

156 months

Thursday 25th October 2018
quotequote all
36 F35’s? I thought the US only sold F35’s to Israel!

Surely that ship with those planes can destroy a small country.

I find things like these so fascinating, thanks PH for giving us insight

anonymous-user

53 months

Thursday 25th October 2018
quotequote all
So they'll have just over 30 seconds to neutralise that snooker ball. Piece of cake. shoot

Piginapoke

4,736 posts

184 months

Thursday 25th October 2018
quotequote all
Another white elephant

jl34

523 posts

236 months

Thursday 25th October 2018
quotequote all
Fantastic piece of British engineering

Ares

11,000 posts

119 months

Thursday 25th October 2018
quotequote all
Piginapoke said:
Another white elephant
Jeremy?

leakymanifold

61 posts

85 months

Thursday 25th October 2018
quotequote all
If I was ordering a ship i think i would order it in a different colour than grey.

MB140

4,028 posts

102 months

Thursday 25th October 2018
quotequote all
Chestrockwell said:
36 F35’s? I thought the US only sold F35’s to Israel!

Surely that ship with those planes can destroy a small country.

I find things like these so fascinating, thanks PH for giving us insight
Erm nope. Have a trip down to RAF Marham. They have been here for about 6 months.

Bladedancer

1,260 posts

195 months

Thursday 25th October 2018
quotequote all
jl34 said:
Fantastic piece of British engineering
Well its sister ship had to go back to the dock because it leaked so you're right :P

Chestrockwell said:
36 F35’s? I thought the US only sold F35’s to Israel!
Nah, they're selling that lemon great plane everywhere they can.

3yardy3

270 posts

113 months

Thursday 25th October 2018
quotequote all
Better read than most of the car articles these days smile

Top work, please use this method when reviewing the next car.

Europa1

10,923 posts

187 months

Thursday 25th October 2018
quotequote all
Piginapoke said:
Another white elephant
Hmmmm....you may be on to something. Remind me which ex-PM's constituency Rosyth is in?

Usget

5,426 posts

210 months

Thursday 25th October 2018
quotequote all
Nanook said:
Bladedancer said:
jl34 said:
Fantastic piece of British engineering
Well its sister ship had to go back to the dock because it leaked so you're right :P
Ever bought a car or a new house, and had snagging issues?

Now imagine the new car you bought was the prototype, the very first one ever built.

Do you expect it to be perfect, right off the bat? Or do you take it out on a trial, to find all these niggly little issues?

The leak was a fairly trivial and minor issue, and the sort of thing that happens with many ships when they're taken out on sea trials. Not really a big deal.
Or to put it another way - imagine they'd taken it for a test drive and found absolutely nothing at all wrong. On a 65,000 tonne ship which took 8 years to build.

Would they have been jumping for joy? Or perhaps a little bit suspicious, and in need of some harder tests?

Itsallicanafford

2,759 posts

158 months

Thursday 25th October 2018
quotequote all
Love this...bring on the Prince Andrew, we are on a roll so lets keep going through all the Royals...

charlestdci

18 posts

218 months

Thursday 25th October 2018
quotequote all
Great article. Can recommend savetheroyalnavy.org for even more insight into the QE class carriers, F35Bs and other aspects of the Royal Navy.

FourWheelDrift

88,381 posts

283 months

Thursday 25th October 2018
quotequote all
Itsallicanafford said:
Love this...bring on the Prince Andrew, we are on a roll so lets keep going through all the Royals...
HMS Sarah, Duchess of York.


That would make anyone run away.

350Matt

3,733 posts

278 months

Thursday 25th October 2018
quotequote all
Europa1 said:
Piginapoke said:
Another white elephant
Hmmmm....you may be on to something. Remind me which ex-PM's constituency Rosyth is in?
or its a national project which employs hundred if not thousands, puts government spending back into the economy and keeps us relevant on the world stage

depending on your outlook of course..

j90gta

563 posts

133 months

Thursday 25th October 2018
quotequote all
FourWheelDrift said:
Itsallicanafford said:
Love this...bring on the Prince Andrew, we are on a roll so lets keep going through all the Royals...
HMS Sarah, Duchess of York.


That would make anyone run away.
"Avast behind"

Simpo Two

85,149 posts

264 months

Thursday 25th October 2018
quotequote all
Piginapoke said:
Another white elephant
Another white elephant right up to the point when we suddenly need an aircraft carrier.

You can't buy them on Amazon with next-day delivery.

JackReacher

2,118 posts

214 months

Thursday 25th October 2018
quotequote all
How would the Range Rovers get on and off at the port? Ramp, crane, helicopter?

CS Garth

2,860 posts

104 months

Thursday 25th October 2018
quotequote all
JackReacher said:
How would the Range Rovers get on and off at the port? Ramp, crane, helicopter?
As most other Range Rovers get about - on the back of a recovery truck