What is the Difference between R08 and R09 UK’s new Supercarrier?

What is the Difference between R08 and R09 UK’s new Supercarrier?

UK’s two new Aircraft Carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales will make Royal Navy one of ‘the best navies in the world’.

The Difference UK Supercarrier, R08, and R09/ Difference between HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales

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HMS Queen Elizabeth

HMS Queen Elizabeth is the lead ship of the Queen Elizabeth class of aircraft carriers, the largest warships ever built for the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom and capable of carrying up to 60 aircraft.

• Length: 284 m
• Displacement: 65,000 tonnes (64,000 long tons; 72,000 short tons)
• In service: 2020 (planned)
• Commissioned: 7 December 2017
• Speed: 25 knots (46 km/h)
• Capacity: 1,600

HMS Prince of Wales

HMS Prince of Wales is the second Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier under construction for the Royal Navy, with plans for active service from 2020. She is the seventh Royal Navy ship to have the name HMS Prince of Wales.

• Length: 280 m
• Construction started: May 26, 2011
• Launched: December 21, 2017
• Commissioned: 2020 (planned)
• Status: Fitting out
• Capacity: 1,600
• Decks: 16,000 square meters

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Britain’s two new aircraft carriers are leviathans and an extraordinary feat of British engineering. Standing on board, it’s hard not to be impressed by the sheer scale.

Inside the labyrinth of passageways – wider and more spacious than those on the older US Nimitz-class carriers – you’ll find a chapel, a hospital, and five galleys to feed the 700-plus crew.

That figure rises to 1,600 when you add the flight crews, engineers and Royal Marines who might also be on board. Even fully crewed there’s still plenty of room. The generously sized sleeping cabins are a far cry from the cramped conditions of most warships.

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There are five gyms to burn off the calories, though crew members can clock up 20,000 steps – as far as eight miles (13km) – during their average working day.

HMS Queen Elizabeth has been built to carry up to 36 new F-35 stealth jets, as well as helicopters. But in reality, she’ll routinely sail with fewer than half that number.

The ship, and her sister carrier, HMS Prince of Wales, may have been inspired by US Navy equivalents, but the design is uniquely British.

The bulky angular appearance is, in part, down to how she’s been assembled. Sections have been built in shipyards across the UK – Glasgow, Hebburn, on the Tyne, Appledore, in North Devon, Portsmouth and Birkenhead – and then ferried to Rosyth, in Scotland, to be welded together.