How to slot together one of the Royal Navy’s biggest ships: in two minutes!
This time-lapse video, shot over one day at Babcock’s Rosyth facility, shows how a 13,000 tonne section of aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth was joined to the front end of the ship.
The operation to move 90 metres, using specialist hydraulic rams, was done at about 17 metres per hour. The entire move was completed in just over five hours.
HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales are being delivered by the Aircraft Carrier Alliance, a partnering relationship between BAE Systems, Thales UK, Babcock and the Ministry of Defence.
Aircraft Carrier Alliance programme director Ian Booth, said: “The teams involved showed some great skill in running this really important stage in the build process safely and exactly to plan. Now the first of class, HMS Queen Elizabeth, is really taking shape.”
There are over 2,000 people working on the programme at Babcock’s Rosyth facility where the aircraft carriers are being assembled.
The carriers are being built in “blocks” weighing up to 11,000tonnes at yards across the UK including BAE Systems in Scotstoun and Govan, Glasgow. They are then brought to Rosyth by barge where the carriers are being assembled in the dry dock.
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