Facts & figures

What makes an aircraft carrier…an aircraft carrier?

We’re talking about an enormous job here. Building HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales will require skills and quantities of raw materials that are, quite simply, mind-boggling. Consider the sheer statistics at play…

Each aircraft carrier’s flight-deck will be 13,000m². If you want to know how big that is, consider the size of the football pitch. Then triple it!

The planes on board these ships (36 Joint Strike Fighters and 4 Airborne Early Warning Aircraft) will be kept in hangars below decks. Each hangar will be the size of 12 Olympic swimming pools.

Each aircraft carrier will be powered by 8,600 tonnes of fuel and driven by 2 propellers. Each propeller will weigh 33 tonnes.

Length? 284m – that’s 931 feet. Breadth? 73m or 239 feet.

And just wait until you hear about the sheer hugeness of each aircraft fixtures and fittings. Each vessel will need over two and a quarter million meters of electrical cable! It will need 176,481 metres of piping, 263 internal stairways, 691 vertical ladders, 1,625 doors, 71 hatches and 384 manholes. And each ship will require 29,458 tonnes of structural steel to put her together.

Like we said, an enormous job.  

Somebody’s got to do it. Could it be you?

Find out more interesting facts about the CVF (opens in a new window).

View some of the companies involved in the building of the CVF and contact them to find out what job opportunities could be available!