The Royal Navy’s biggest and most powerful warship has been spotted off the Welsh coast this week. HMS Queen Elizabeth, the Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, is currently conducting trials and drills in the Irish Sea.
The trials come ahead of the fact that this summer the mighty vessel will be deployed to the Mediterranean in a show of naval strength in the face of Russian aggression, reports North Wales Live. The £3.1bn ship is currently in the Irish Sea. On Monday, May 22, she cruised north past Holyhead and, by the evening, online trackers showed the ship heading in a northwest direction.
Not difficult to disguise, many people spotted the vessel, including Anthony Ward, who works for Irish Ferries. His pictures show the warship sailing past the iconic South Stack lighthouse.
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Measuring 282 metres in length, her flight deck spans an enormous four acres – equivalent to nearly three football pitches. She is capable of carrying up to 40 aircraft. In a tweet from the ship’s official account, HMS Queen Elizabeth said: “It’s time to put the ship and crew through their paces as we train for our next deployment!”
Online speculation suggests HMS Queen Elizabeth is patrolling the Irish Sea to safeguard undersea cables and pipelines from Russian intervention. In fact, the ship will lead the Carrier Strike Group 23 deployment in the Mediterranean in August, enabling her F-35 Lightning jets to fly over the Black Sea.
It is the second time this year that MHS Queen Elizabeth has been in Anglesey’s waters. In early February she had a sea rendezvous with Texan training aircraft from RAF Valley en route to Glen Mallan in Scotland.
As well as taking on ammunition there, the flagship was joined by F-35 Lightning jets, and Chinook and Merlin helicopters, as she geared up for a series of exercises and operations in European waters this year.
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