Ability to operate offensive aircraft abroad when foreign basing may be denied. 2. The QE Class aircraft carriers are being delivered by the Aircraft Carrier Alliance, a unique partnering relationship between BAE Systems, Babcock, Thales, and the UK Ministry of Defence. The report, published in July 1998 identified that aircraft carriers offered the following: 1. She was commissioned on 7 December 2017, with an initial operating capability expected in 2018. The Queen Elizabeth class is a class of two aircraft carriers of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy. They’re our nation’s flagships, and will be for the next 50 years, as they embark on our most vital global deployments. It improves on the Nimitz-class carriers that ruled the seas since the 1970s Queen Elizabeth Class Aircraft Carriers It's only natural that a project of the Queen Elizabeth Class carriers' scale would attract the kind of attention that it has. The ship began sea trials in June 2017 The lead ship, HMS Queen Elizabeth, was named on 4 July 2014, in honour of Elizabeth I. Capable of carrying close to 60 aircraft, she is named in honour of the first Queen Elizabeth, a World War I era super-dreadnought, which in turn was named after Queen Elizabeth I. The carrier Queen Elizabeth will carry her namesake ship's honours, as well as her Tudor rose-adorned crest and motto. In May 1997, the newly elected Labour government launched the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) which re-evaluated every weapon system (active or in procurement) with the exception of the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarines. Together we remain focused on delivering this critical capability for the Nation. As an indication of such operations, on the QE’s first operational deployment to the Pacific she will carry a mix of British and US F-35s and be accompanied by a Dutch air warfare destroyer. The QE Class Carriers represent an engineering challenge of unprecedented scale and complexity for the United Kingdom; a national endeavour, involving six shipyards and 10,000 people. At the NATO 2014 Wales summit, then Prime Minister David Cameron announced that the second carrier would be b The second, HMS Prince of Wales, was launched on 21 December 2017, and was commissioned on 10 December 2019. The origins of the massive and sometimes controversial Queen Elizabeth class carrier programme lie in the 1998 Strategic Defence Review. Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers are the biggest warships ever built for the Royal Navy – and the most advanced. F-35Bs on HMS Queen Elizabeth. The review re-evaluated every weapon system (active or in procurement) with the exception of the Eurofighter Typhoon and the Vanguard-class ballistic missile submarines. 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. USS Gerald R Ford Aircraft carrier vs HMS Queen Elizabeth Aircraft carrier.The USS Gerald R. Ford is without a doubt the largest, most powerful aircraft carrier ever put to sea. It means that it’s already doing part of the job it was commissioned to do: to be a conspicuous presence – a key feature of being a deterrent. In such circumstances it could be assumed that an Royal Navy carrier would be operating as part of a larger allied taskforce. We are extremely proud of the valuable contribution we make to the Queen Elizabeth Class Carrier programme, working as part of the Aircraft Carrier Alliance.