Key Design Facts

• Length: 280m – 90m longer than the existing (CVS) aircraft carrier
  
• Width: 70m – twice the width of the existing (CVS) aircraft carrier
  
• Aircraft: 40 aircraft – double the capacity of the existing (CVS) aircraft carrier.  The JCA is expected to carry at least twice the useful payload of the Harrier.
  
• Complement:  682 - similar to the much smaller CVS (c726).  With the airgroup, the total complement is 1,600, which is only about 500 more than CVS in a ship three times the size.
   
• Weapon systems: QE Class is designed to receive the latest generation of Phalanx close-in weapon system for defence of vessel.  Also designed to receive 30mm guns and mini-guns located to counter asymmetric threats.
  
• Power generation: 2 x Rolls-Royce MT30 Gas Turbines and 4 x Diesel Generator Sets giving total installed power of 110MWe
  
• Range: 8,000 to10,000 nautical miles (at least 1,000 nautical miles further than CVS).

Physical Size

• The carrier will be a similar size and weight to the ocean liner QE2.
  
• 65,000 tonnes displacement which equates to nearly 600 blue whales.
  
• From keel to masthead the ship is 56m high – 6m higher than Nelson’s Column.
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• 280m long, which equates to 28 London Double Decker buses.
  
• Through increased automation, total crew numbers will only be two fifths more than on the current Invincible class, even though the QE Class is three times the size.
  
• 1.5 million square metres of paintwork, which is 30 acres or more than 8 times the area of the Forth Road bridge (or slightly more than the area of Hyde Park).
  
• The design displaces about three times as much as an Invincible-class ship, has four times the internal hull volume, carries 70% more ship and aircraft fuel and has 75% more un-refuelled range.

Flight Deck & Hangar

• The flight deck area is nearly 16000m2, equivalent to 60 tennis courts or almost 3 football pitches.
  
• Runway length is 261m, equivalent to the length of two and a half football pitches.
  
• The hangar is 163m in length with parking for up to 20 JCA– it is large enough to hold 6 spread Chinook helicopters.
  
• The internal hangar surface area is nearly 5000m2, the equivalent of 18 tennis courts.
  
• A surge complement of 36 Joint Strike Fighters and 4 Sea King Airborne Surveillance and Control helicopters can be embarked – a combined aircraft weight of over 1000 tonnes and double the aircraft capacity of the current CVS carriers.

Mission System

• The QEC mission system brings together one of the largest and most complex heterogeneous suites of hardware and software ever to be hosted on a maritime platform. 
   
• The Mission System infrastructure has 318km of wired cabling equivalent of stretching a copper cable from London to Liverpool.

Propulsion & Electrical Generation & Distrbution

• The gas turbines and diesel generators provide electricity and propulsion produce a total power output of 109MW – the equivalent of the power needed to run a town the size of Swindon. (or equivalent to 9100 homes) – or 7 million energy saving light bulbs.
  
• The carriers will have the latest marine power and propulsion technology giving significant improvements in fuel efficiency and reducing running costs and environmental impact.
  
• There is 2.2 million metres of electrical cable, which equates to the distance from London to Tromsø in Norway.
  

Auxiliary Systems

• 112 km of pipework or the equivalent of the distance from Bristol to Oxford.
  
• There is 42km of ventilation ducting on board, which is more than the distance run in a marathon (40km).
  
• Using the plants on board, 319 thousand litres of fresh water can be produced on board in a day – enough to fill an Olympic swimming pool.

Habitability

• 1630 bunks which is more than 4 times those in Great Ormond Street Hospital.
  
• QEC has 1650 doors on board, which is almost the same as Buckingham Palace (1514).
  
• There are 28000 light bulbs on board, which is 2/3 of the number in Buckingham Palace (40000).