For its next deployment, the Royal Navy flagship will carry eight F-35B fighters, with a general carrying capacity of 24 aircraft. SWNS/SWNS/ABACA
The Royal Navy’s flagship is two-thirds empty due to a lack of aircraft.
The Queen Elizabeth’s deck is sparse. The proud British aircraft carrier needs planes. As the centerpiece of an international mission in the North Atlantic and around Norway, the Royal Navy flagship will sail two-thirds empty. It only has eight fifth-generation fighter aircraft, leading to controversy over the current capabilities of the Royal Air Force and the British Army more generally.
HMS Queen Elizabeth can accommodate up to thirty-six F-35B Lightnings and is expected to routinely operate 24. But according to the Times, only eight fighter jets will be on board for this very light mission. For comparison, the newspaper recalls that the American aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford, when it cruised in the same area earlier this year, had more than forty aircraft on board.
“It’s hardly symbolic”
“There is no point in having an aircraft carrier without aircraft,” commented Admiral Lord West, former head of the Royal Navy, “can you imagine that…”
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