Not convinced by the Navy’s new carriers

THAT was a splendid sight, the new aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth entering Portsmouth harbour. But as a lifelong aeroplane buff I had a nagging query in my mind. Aircraft? Four workaday helicopters?

All right, I am premature. Be patient, old Fred. There are a couple of years of sea trials; tests of every kind and description yet to be undergone before the real “teeth” of any flat-top yet appear. They will happen one day, and roar off the deck to make the carrier a real weapon of war. But already there are niggling worries that we may have made several wrong choices. I was one of those with deep reservations when, in a pretty disastrous Defence and Security Review the Government years ago decided to scrap our carriers Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious. That left us a 10-year gap with no carrier at all. We also scrapped nearly 100 expensively upgraded vertical takeoff Harriers.

Now we have the nowhere-near-ready-yet QE in Portsmouth harbour and the even-further from completion Prince of Wales in a Scottish dry dock. Word is out that we cannot crew them – the men with the skills have retired. And the combat aircraft? We have chosen the American multi-role combat aircraft, the F-35. But powerful voices out of the US defence industry are warning it is badly flawed and so fearsomely expensive that we can afford only half what we wanted. We could have had the F-18A Superhornet; almost identical performance, battletested, no teething troubles, and a fraction of the price of F-35.

Our MOD procurement arm has a ghastly reputation and it looks as if it has done it again.