Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier
2017 class of British aircraft carriers
The Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy consists of two vessels. The lead ship of her class, HMS Queen Elizabeth, was named on 4 July 2014 in honour of Elizabeth I and was commissioned on 7 December 2017. Her sister ship, HMS Prince of Wales, was launched on 21 December 2017, and was commissioned on 10 December 2019. They form the central components of the UK Carrier Strike Group.
The contract for the vessels was announced in July 2007, ending several years of delay over cost issues and British naval shipbuilding restructuring. The contracts were signed one year later on 3 July 2008, with the Aircraft Carrier Alliance, a partnership formed with Babcock International, Thales Group, A&P Group, the UK Ministry of Defence and BAE Systems. In 2014 the UK Government announced that the second carrier would be brought into service, ending years of uncertainty surrounding its future. This was confirmed by the Strategic Defence and Security Review 2015, with at least one carrier being available at any time.
The vessels have a full load displacement of an estimated 80,600 tonnes (79,300 long tons), are 284 metres (932 ft) long and are the largest warships ever constructed for the Royal Navy.
The carrier air wing (CVW) will vary depending on the type and location of deployment, but will consist of 12-24 F-35Bs under in peacetime and 36 in a conflict scenario (with up to 48 in extreme cases) and Merlin helicopters to conduct anti-submarine warfare, airborne early warning and utility roles.
The public source identifies “Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier” as 2017 class of British aircraft carriers. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Queen, Elizabeth-class and aircraft.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q948494. The Library of Congress control number is sh2014001326. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2014, 2017, 2019 and 2007.
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This entry incorporates text from “Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carrier” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.