Queensferry Crossing, HMS Queen Elizabeth and all things Royal Navy

[Dartman]

Not Quite. the QE has been cleared for aircraft and has some, whether they are still embarked is another matter, historically UK carriers only carried aircraft when at sea and operational, they do not carry aircraft normally in UK ports. PoW is not commissioned and in theory is a merchant ship until accepted, after sea trials and accepted she ( weird, a ship, therefore a "she" but with a male name, perhaps gender bending is not that new) will be able to take aircraft some will be shared between the QE and the RAF, Those F35's are a touch expensive, just as well the accident rate has reduced in the RAF and FAA, I spent 9 months on an operational carrier in the 60's we lost 5 fighter bombers 2 crew and one Wessex with 6 crew in that time

 

[Titch]

Probably.

 

[Bill Boddy]

.... I spent 9 months on an operational carrier in the 60's we lost 5 fighter bombers 2 crew and one Wessex with 6 crew in that time

Whilst I was on RAF Gan I watched a twin-boomed aircraft from Ark Royal come down and then trundle down the runway, go across the road round the island and gently over the sand and into the oggin. I turned out that it had lost it's brakes. This then turned into a spat between the pilot (RAF on loan to the RN) and the air traffic controller.

Due to some work being carried out the voice recorders were out of commision; the pilot swore that he had asked if the net was up, the controller said that he had said that the trip wire was up. As a result he pilot did not activate his trip hook.

The controller was the same one who had talked down an aircraft a few days earlier and had then been congratulated by that pilot for "bringing us down by the scenic route".

 

[Titch]

You can’t get the staff.

 

[FB]

Nothing to to do with the Queen Elizabeth but a wonderful picture none the less. HMS Vanguard run aground by the Still and West at the entrance to Portsmouth Harbour, August 1960.

 

[cider_and_toast]

On her way to the breakers yard.

The old girl didn't want to go.

 

[Titch]

My Dad, a Naval man, hated the ships from his navy going to the knackers yard. His navy was very different from my husband’s navy.
Oh Joy.

 

[cider_and_toast]

I'm in an unusual position give the number of warships that have been taken out of service in the last 30 or so years in that, I joined in 1993, served 22 years and on 7 different ships and all of them are currently still in service.

 

[Dartman]

Submariner then Cider? They're the only ones with a hull thickness not to rust away and let the water in

 

[gethinceri]

They'll all be on the books until their reactors are safe!!!!!

 

[cider_and_toast]

There's two berths, one in Rosyth and one in Devonport containing every single British Nuclear Submarine thats ever been in service because they have no idea where else to put them. The reactors are out and they have no fuel on board but they are still a bit glow in the dark.

And fortunately I never served as a sun dodger.

 

[Greenlantern101]

Uranium 235 has a half life of 704 million years. This doesn't mean that in 704 million years it will be half as radioactive it means there will be half as much U 235 as there is now and what remains will still be as radioactive as it is now. So keeping radioactive subs floating in a basin ain't a long term solution. Never has been. They subs need broken up and buried very deep encased in concrete.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Indeed so.

The hulls of boats like Dreadnought, Valiant and Warspite are now pushing 60 years old.

The trouble is, it costs a great deal of money, you have to find someone willing to do the work, cut them up and dispose of them safely.

Successive Governments have been kicking the can down the road.

 

[Dartman]

The only country to scrap nuclear subs was the Soviet Union, they were put down to accidents where the whole crew managed to "escape" onto a handy nearby support vessel, these "accidents" were peculiar to old type obsolete SSBN's supposedly with a full complement of missiles. The US tried to recover one with a drill ship in the Sea of Japan with, depending who reports it varying degrees of success.
Dreadnoughts hull is 61 years old and the reactor probably 59 years since it went critical for the first time, the problem is that the reactor compartment is the only radiation hazard but trying to remove it from the rest of the hull safely can only be achieved on land but with risks to personnel and the immediate area. I suspect everyone is waiting for the USA to come up with a solution as they have many more nuclear powered vessels than anyone else laid up including a cargo liner and the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise whose hulls date back to the Dreadnought days and age whose hulls are considerably thinner.

 

[cider_and_toast]

The only country to scrap nuclear subs was the Soviet Union, they were put down to accidents where the whole crew managed to "escape" onto a handy nearby support vessel,

I've never heard of this. I can only find the reported loss of 9 Nuclear Submarines in total. 1 American and 8 Soviet / Russian and only one of those was an old Hull that sank while under tow and 9 of the 10 salvage workers on board at the time were killed.

 

[Titch]

We could recycle the Uranium. Someone should get busy on that.

 

[FB]

I read somewhere that the Russian solution was to cut a hole in the bottom of the boat and let the reactor drop to the bottom of a deep part of the ocean. There are, or were, a number of former Soviet ship/submarine dumps and hugely polluted lakes in Russia which the authorities just forget about.

The Soviet Union Dumped a Bunch of Nuclear Submarines, Reactors, and Containers into the Ocean

European Bank Could Help Russia Lift Sunken Nuclear Submarines

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has signaled its readiness to help Russia raise...

www.maritime-executive.com

 

[Brogan]

The obvious solution, albeit an expensive one, is to fire them into the sun.

 

[Dartman]

• The USA lost two, the Thresher and the Scorpion, though the Soviet one lost in the Sea of Japan was a SSBN it was conventional submarine, not all Soviet submarine losses were reported even now for various reasons.

 

[cider_and_toast]

Just curious but if they weren't reported how do you know they were sunk in staged accidents? Seems like a bit of a complicated plan when, as FB said above, it was easier to find a deep hole in the ocean and just drop them in no staging required.