The Royal Navy’s prized new carrier
Military Times reports that while the future flagship of the Royal Navy, aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, isn’t scheduled to complete its first real deployment until 2021, that hasn’t kept the Brits from ensuring one morale-boosting element is installed and standing by for duty.
A new pub, known as the Queen’s Head, was christened last week aboard the Queen Elizabeth and will be available to officers and senior enlisted during the ship’s maiden transit of the Atlantic, a journey that began Aug. 18 and one that features two embarked U.S. F-35B Lightning II aircraft from Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland.
The Wiltshire-based Wadworth brewery, which created an ale specifically for the ship’s December 2017 commissioning — a beverage appropriately named “Carrier Ale” — was instrumental in bringing the pub to life.
“It has been a long time in the planning, well before the carrier was commissioned last year,” brewery CEO Chris Welham said in a Wadworth press release. “The Mess looks really great and will provide a relaxing environment along with some fine beer for the team on board when they have some downtime.”
If only our Navy was so civilized.
Category: Navy
So their tars get a ration o’ grog and our gobs don’t?
That is SO unfair!!!
It’s the same way I felt in A-stan when we saw other Nations’ Military personnel enjoying Adult Beverages while we had goddammudda-fuckingpisspantsshiteatingcandyassedbuttfuck General Order 1A!
The future flagship of the Royal Navy, the 65,000-ton aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, isn’t scheduled to complete its first real deployment until 2021, but that hasn’t kept the Brits from ensuring one morale-boosting element is installed and ready for duty. A new pub, known as the Queen’s Head, was christened last week aboard the Queen Elizabeth and will be available to officers and senior enlisted during the ship’s maiden transit of the Atlantic, a journey that began Aug. 18 and one that features two embarked U.S. F-35B Lightning II aircraft from Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. The Wiltshire-based Wadworth brewery, which created an ale specifically for the ship’s December 2017 commissioning — a beverage appropriately named “Carrier Ale” — was instrumental in bringing the pub to life. “It has been a long time in the planning, well before the carrier was commissioned last year,” brewery CEO Chris Welham said in a Wadworth press release. “The Mess looks really great and will provide a relaxing environment along with some fine beer for the team on board when they have some downtime.” What’s on the drink menu? Wadworth brewery will be supplying a range of goods to the thirsty officers and senior enlisted onboard. Among those: 6X Ale — the 4.1 percent ABV beer described as “the jewel in Wadworth’s crown” won gold at the recent World Beer Awards. Swordfish Ale — a blend of beer and an old Navy rum recipe combines for a flavor-packed, 5 percent ABV ale with a rum aroma. Carrier Ale — on the lighter side, a 3.6 percent ABV pale ale brewed specifically for the ship’s commissioning. The specially-brewed Carrier Ale will be available for purchase onboard the HMS Queen Elizabeth. (Wadworth) The specially-brewed Carrier Ale will be available for purchase onboard the HMS Queen Elizabeth. (Wadworth) Wadworth will donate a portion of proceeds from every bottle of beer sold to the Royal Navy and Royal Marines charity, the pub christening announcement said. The ceremony was attended by Wadworth and Royal Navy personnel, including the Queen Elizabeth’s commanding officer, Capt. Jerry Kyd, who addressed… Read more »
Life on a Carrier is dangerous enough, do you really want the men drinking or smashed?
The Royal Navy had Rum rations on board their ships while I was on the OKIE 3, but I don’t remember the year when it was stopped. That’s why they always walked straight when they were in San Juan PR coming out of the bars while yours truly wobbled a little after a couple of sips from a Rum & Coke. Call Blimey love a Duck.
“The Mess looks really great and will provide a relaxing environment along with some fine beer for the team on board when they have some downtime.”
Sea going bar and grill with a flat roof.
Booze and downtime? Maybe that’s another thing our Navy should look at copying. I’ve heard some harrowing stories of sending sailors on watch duty after having worked for days straight.
Is it just me or is it not a very good looking ship. Think about it – the Iowa class battleships (and several of the BB classes that preceded it) have great lines. They’re just great looking ships. Even our modern CVNs and LHDs a cool looking ships. The QE? Not so much in my humble land lubber’s opinion. Maybe it’s the two island thing, but I just don’t dig it. As a modeler, I don’t think I would have a place for it next to my 1/350th Battleship North Carolina.
https://get.google.com/albumarchive/104745627018165888181/album/AF1QipOf1KMtmt22WUlGkN5b3REfiXz_pwRimR1UJh2M
While I can’t account for why the Royal Navy configured the islands as they did, the ‘ski jump’ at the bow on the flight deck enables aircraft such as the Harrier and F-35B to launch safely at higher takeoff weights than is possible/safe aboard USN flat deck LHDs.
That ‘ski jump’ may not be pleasing to the eye, but it’s very effective in enabling safe STOVL aircraft launches and the Royal Navy pilots that I have talked to over the years love it (Royal Navy aircraft carriers have had ‘ski jumps’ for decades).
The Iwo Jima Class LPH’s design really sucked with the V shaped stern. I think it was because of budget cuts, Mc Namara had a hundred feet taken off and losing one screw in the process instead of having two screw’s. I hate to say this but we really got screwed (no pun intended) on the 100 foot loss.
I spent a short stay on the Iwo back in 68. I thought I had died and gone to heaven!
Hate to say it, but the old Soviet Union built some real lookers, ship-wise. Kirov CGN, for nuclear powered guided missile cruiser.
Looks almost Yamato-like – just without the guns and wood deck. I would embed the picture I found, but don’t know how:
http://r.duckduckgo.com/l/?kh=-1&uddg=http%3A%2F%2Fmilitaryhistory.x10.mx%2Fshippictures%2Fwow_ijn%2Fyamato.jpg
Yes, not a bad looking ship.
I saw the movie, great flick.
What’s with the two islands?
(Speaking of exciting news about aircraft carriers and all manner of things thereunto pertaining, I’ll just leave this here for AW1Ed and Atkron and the rest of the Navy and Marine Corps Aviation crew here on Team TAH. See ya at the movies! Heh heh heh…) ‘”Top Gun” sequel filming aboard Norfolk-based aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln’ https://pilotonline.com/news/military/local/article_23811e14-a53a-11e8-a333-73aec78d8ae9.html ‘NORFOLK The highway to the danger zone will run through Hampton Roads. The sequel to the 1986 Hollywood blockbuster “Top Gun” is filming aboard the Norfolk-based USS Abraham Lincoln this week, according to the Navy. The original film inspired an entire generation of fighter pilots and served as a recruiting bonanza for the Navy. The much-anticipated sequel began shooting on May 31, according to a photo on Tom Cruise’s Instagram account. The photo featured him in a flight suit near a fighter jet with the same helmet he wore in the original film and referenced an oft-quoted line from the original movie: “I feel the need, the need for speed.” The first day of shooting took place at Naval Air Station North Island in California, the Navy said. Few details about what the film will be about have been released, but Cruise revealed in an interview with “Access Hollywood” last year that it would be called “Top Gun: Maverick.” “Stylistically it’ll be the same,” Cruise said in the interview. “We’ll have big, fast machines. … It’s going to be a competition film like the first one and it’s going to be in the same vein, the same tone as the first one, but a progression for Maverick.” A 15-person crew from Paramount Pictures and Bruckheimer Films went aboard the Lincoln on Sunday and will remain through Saturday, said Naval Air Force Atlantic spokesman Cmdr. Dave Hecht. He said no actors are aboard and that the crew is shooting footage on the flight deck of air operations, which include F/A-18 Super Hornets from Virginia Beach-based Carrier Air Wing Seven taking off and landing as part of their carrier qualifications. “This opportunity is one of many aircraft carrier embarks planned pierside and at sea… Read more »
That’s interesting. Kilmer has throat cancer that is possibly spreading to his brain. Perhaps this may be his swan son?
“…it’s going to be in the same vein, the same tone as the first one…”
NOOOOOOoooooooo!!!!!!
The horrors we visit upon ourselves in the name of mindless entertainment.
Thanks, Mick. This will take at least two disturbingly large glasses of single barrel bourbon to expunge from memory.
Who am I bullshitting, three.
Nope. This is going to take a jug of white lightning.
They used to give us two beers after 100 days. Hopefully they still do.
“Be available for officers and senior enlisted.” What, No grog for the working stiffs?
Nobody yet has commented on “The Queen’s Head”?
1. I imagine a toilet with gold-plated urinals, spigots, and soft towels handed out by a retired SGM in uniform.
2. The sign might have Mary, Queen of Scots’ head on a platter.
3. Something too rude to mention in polite company.