HMS Queen Elizabeth Taller Than Ever

HMS Queen Elizabeth – the Navy’s flagship of tomorrow – is now taller than Nelson’s Column with the addition of the ship’s main radar. The large long range radar was craned into place on top of the carrier’s forward island.

The nation’s future flagship now stands 56 metres (183ft) tall after the enormous Goliath crane lifted the 8.4-tonne long-range radar into place on top of the carrier’s forward island.

The radar – similar to those fitted on the Type 45 destroyers – safely arrived in Rosyth with its support, the mast cap, from Hengelo in the eastern Netherlands back in September. Since then feverish work has been going on around Queen Elizabeth to complete her hull (finished earlier this month [NOV] with the addition of her ski ramp).

With the addition of the mast cap and black slab – officially an antenna, despite its size (32m2 or 344ft2) – all of the ship’s main structure blocks are now in place.

The radar, which provides a three dimensional, long-range picture not just of the skies around Queen Elizabeth but also the waters, sits 27 metres (88ft) above the flight deck, 50 metres (164ft) above the sea. And that’s still not the highest point on Queen Elizabeth. When the communications pole mast is fitted next year it will be 70 metres (230ft) from tip to keel – which is almost as long as a River-class patrol ship.

It now falls to the weapon engineering department and Aircraft Carrier Alliance technicians to mesh the radar and the data it will gather in with the rest of the systems aboard.

[mappress]

Press Release, November 29, 2013