Britain may sell aircraft carrier to India to limit cuts

[Born In The USA]

MoD may sell aircraft carrier to India to limit cuts

One of Britain's new £2bn aircraft carriers could be sold off under cost-cutting plans being considered by the Ministry of Defence. India has lodged a firm expression of interest, the Observer has learned.

The sale of one of the two 65,000-tonne vessels would leave the Royal Navy with a single carrier and could force Britain to borrow from the French fleet, which itself has only one carrier and is reluctant to build more. Last summer the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, proposed to Gordon Brown that the two navies co-ordinate maintenance and refitting so that one was at sea at all times.

According to senior defence sources, Whitehall officials are examining the feasibility of a sale as part of the strategic defence review that will start early next year and is expected to result in savage cuts.

The carrier programme has already been delayed by two years to push back spending commitments, which itself will end up costing the taxpayer more in the long run. BAE Systems began work in July on HMS Queen Elizabeth, which is due to come into service in 2016. Preparatory work on the Prince of Wales, due for launch in 2018, has also started. The two carriers will replace the ageing Invincible class and are three times the size.

There were fears that the government could scrap one altogether. But it is understood that the financial penalties would be prohibitive. About 10,000 jobs in Portsmouth, Barrow-in-Furness, Fife and Glasgow depend on the orders.

MoD may sell aircraft carrier to India | Politics | The Observer

 

[Insane]

IF this news is true, and indeed the sale happens then it would be Awesome

Looks like a Rocking Ship

 

[gubbi]

Queen Elizabeth Class Facts and Figures

* Each ship will be similar size and weight as the ocean liner the QE2 The Queen Elizabeth Class (QE Class)dimensions are: 65,000 tonnes at full displacement; 280m (920ft) length x 70m (230ft) width at flightdeck level; 56m from keel to masthead – 6m taller than Nelson's Column; 11m max draft (keel to waterline); 9 decks deep + Flight Deck; 40 aircraft.
* Each ship weighs more than 32,500 average family cars.
* The maximum expected Air Group to be embarked is 36 Joint Strike Fighters and four Airborne Early Warning aircraft, bringing the combined weight of embarked aircraft to over 1,000 tonnes.
* QE Class will carry over 8,600 tonnes of fuel to support the Ship and her aircraft – enough for the average family car to travel to the moon and back twelve times.
* The ships can carry more than 1,000 tonnes of food - enough to feed the crew for six weeks.
* The Flight Deck area is nearly 13,000m² - the equivalent of 49 tennis courts or three football pitches.
* The hangar is 29,000m³ - equivalent to 12 Olympic swimming pools.
* The Ship's Long Range radar is the same size to that of a large mobile home.
* QE Class has two propellers of 6.7m diameter, weighing 33 tonnes each - Nearly two & half times as heavy as a double decker bus and one & half times as high. Each is driven by a pair of electric motors.
* The ships’ anchors will be 3.1m in height, each weighing 13 tonnes - almost as much as a double decker bus.
* Each of the two huge lifts that move aircraft from hangar to flightdeck can carry two fighter-bombers. They're so big one of them could carry the weight of the entire ship's crew.
* Total crew numbers on HM Ships Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales are only two fifths more than on the Invincible class – even though they are three times the size.
* Sixty-seven catering staff will cook the Ship's Company of up to 1,450 personnel three meals a day
* There will be four galleys on board, serving four large dining areas, the largest of which can serve 960 crew in an hour. The entire crew can be served in 90 minutes (45 minutes when at Action Stations).
* The crew will have a range of recreational facilities, when not on duty, such as cinema and fitness suites, available 24 hours a day. As is currently the case in the Fleet, all personnel have access to e-mail and the Internet, subject to satellite communications equipment not being used for operational purposes.
* In Britain's last big carrier, the Ark Royal scrapped in the late 1970s, sailors lived 100 men to a mess deck. On the new carriers they share six berth cabins with large and comfortable bunks and adjacent toilet facilities and showers.
* Using a combination of Diesel and Gas Turbine driven Generators, QE Class will produce 109MW, enough to run a town the size of Swindon. The combined weight of the Diesel Generators is 800 tonnes.
* There will be 11 full time medical staff, managing an eight bed medical suite, operating theatre and dental surgery, which can also be augmented as the mission demands (eg humanitarian operations).
* QE Class will produce over 150 tonnes of fresh water daily.
* In keeping with the most modern navy ships the new carriers will still have a NAAFI shop stocking confectionary items for private purchase that would not normally be supplied through Government sources, and QE Class will have a sizeable shop to cater for the 1,450 personnel on board.
* Designing and building the ships is expected to sustain and create some 10,000 jobs across the UK throughout its design and manufacture. At the peak of assembly, over a thousand personnel are expected to be engaged on QE Class at each of the yards at Govan, Barrow, Rosyth and Portsmouth.

If GoI manages to grab this opportunity and buy this behemoth, it would be quite a steal! Imagine how many of Mig-29Ks can be assigned to this A/C alone!
Would the Queen's Govt approve the sale of this ship to India even if the GoI came up with the money? Would there be any caveats?

 

[GLOBAL HAWK]

Good news for India If the sale happens!!!!!

i dont understand which way is the royal navy heading???

65000 tons and no nuclear propulsion yet for royal navy on this behemoth.

y cant royal navy go nuclear with this if it can build nuclear powered submarines??

 

[Honor]

This AC will cost a bomb to operate. What will be the fuel cost if it is not nuclear?

Good luck to India

 

[gubbi]

Good news for India If the sale happens!!!!!

i dont understand which way is the royal navy heading???

65000 tons and no nuclear propulsion yet for royal navy on this behemoth.

y cant royal navy go nuclear with this if it can build nuclear powered submarines??

Isnt the British govt already under immense financial strain, that there are reports that they plan to sell one of their A/Cs? Wouldn't nuclear propulsion system drive up the costs further? Now with INS Arihant's nuclear reactor, is a refit of the QE possible with our own nuclear reactor, if we end up buying it?

Its interesting to see from the above pic I posted, that both the Nimitz class and the CDG aircraft carriers are nuclear powered, while the QE class A/C is conventional powered vessel!

 

[gubbi]

Good luck to India

Thank you.

btw I did not understand your first sentence. All I could notice was gibberish!

 

[SU-57E]

indeed very good news for india if it happens
i wonder how our neighbours feel about it. i would like to hear their comments.

 

[Merilion]

indeed very good news for india if it happens
i wonder how our neighbours feel about it. i would like to hear their comments.

since u ask, here are my personal feelings:

1. India is richer than UK now
2. this is a win-win situation: you get what you want, since u will have less money for other indigenous projects, this is not a bad news for China in the long run.
3. the AC looks very cool

 

[SU-57E]

money is not a problem. we re still using around 2-2.2% of our GDP.

 

[IBRIS]

Displacement: 65,000 tonnes (full)
Length: 280 metres (920 ft)
Beam: 39 metres (waterline)
c.70 metres overall
Draught: 9 metres
Decks: 13,000 square metres
Speed: 25+ knots
Range: 10,000 nautical miles (18,520 km)
Capacity: 1,450
Complement: 600
Aircraft carried:40 (50 full load) aircraft (VSTOL configuration)

 

[Ruag]

Thank you.

btw I did not understand your first sentence. All I could notice was gibberish!

I think he was trying to say that Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers are not powered by nuclear reactors and therefore would be relatively more expensive to operate.

 

[Ruag]

Another interesting perspective on the relative size and capabilities of aircraft carriers under construction -



As far as I know, Queen Elizabeth is specifically designed keeping the STOVL capabilities of the F-35 in mind. Uhh... so, India will buying F-35s too as a part of this (*speculative*) deal?

 

[abbasniazi]

In my humble opinion, QE would be the best AC for IN, i,ve always had a very strong feeling that the western powers have seriously considered and deployed AC technology when compared to asian powers.

i have full faith in british AC, and the way Admiral Gurshkov's costs are increasing with every day that passes, yet india is willing rather trapped to buy it, the QE would serve as a high tech state of the art platform for India, and trust me if IN goes for this platform with F35s as its onboard aircrafts, this AC would be the best second only to the USA in the world and it would take chinese decades to catchup.

India can learn from its technology and can refit this AC with a nuclear reactor at a later stage, this would surely bring india to the status of second best Navy in the world.

I am a Pakistani and would not like britain to sell this AC to india, but when we are on this forum we are supposed to express our views indifferently, if i'd the opportunity to buy this AC for PN, i'd go for it blindfolded.

 

[Luftwaffe]

No f-35 for India it would bring an "END" to indo-russian longhaul relationship..over n out. It is better to invest in indigenous AC rather then wasting money here and there.