HMS Illustrious

[floppybootstomp]

So I'm walking from my place to the garage to pick me motor up after repairs and lo and behold there's a bloody great warship on the horizon.

Sure looked weird moored in Greenwich, it is huge.

Dunno why it's there but I took a few snaps, have a look.















On zoom with my G9 camera. That soldier looks armed to me.





Old and new defence, something of a contrast eh?









Walked past this, work ongoing on the Cutty Sark boat.





And lastly, here's some Youtube footage of American planes landing on that boat:


Seriously nice machines

[Bobster]

raaar check out the Goalkeeper!!

[floppybootstomp]

I took some more pix after this thread but never got round to posting them. The boat has now long gone.

These pix show what it looked like from where I live, an aircraft onboard and a helicopter that landed on the boat.

[Flibb]

Nice photos, interesting thing is whats sitting on the flight deck. Is that an F-22?

[floppybootstomp]

Nice photos, interesting thing is whats sitting on the flight deck. Is that an F-22?

I have no idea, I was hoping somebody here might know

I'm told the helicopter is a Lynx.

Thanks for the comment

[kalniel]

Mock F35. We've ordered them as the harrier replacement (we'll call them joint combat aircraft or something like that).

[Funkstar]

Cool photos

I was offshore last week, flying back from the platform the chopper pilot announced over the intercom that if we were able to look out the right side of the chopper, we would see a Russian navy vessel pretending to be one fire along with a Russian aircraft carrier taking part in an exercise. It was pretty cool, never seen anything like that before. They both looked like complete buckets though!

[Bobster]

yeah Navy Lynx and a F-35 Lightning II or JSF (Joint Strike Fighter) - it has VTOL capability..

[merdat]

love the photos .

[kalniel]

yeah Navy Lynx and a F-35 Lightning II or JSF (Joint Strike Fighter) - it has VTOL capability..

Well, it will do if they can get it working...

[Bobster]

Well, it will do if they can get it working...

oh it works, i have a dvd with it on somewhere

[kalniel]

oh it works, i have a dvd with it on somewhere

You have a DVD of a prototype working, and not at combat weight. The Navy do not want another bird which has to ditch weapons to land vertical.

[[GSV]Trig]

Dooesnt work as well as the Harrier imho, what is it with replacing aircraft that work properly for the role they were created and having these crappy multirole ones that cant do any job brilliantly..

[Bobster]

Harrier is a multi-role aircraft...

and everyone wants stealth these days ..

[kalniel]

Well, harrier was an evolution of a design that was always intended for VSTOL first and foremost - once in the the air it was relatively multi-role. But the F35 wasn't even designed for VTOL primarily - it was designed for STOL and it was planned that the B varient would have additional mechanics for VTOL to satisfy the British market. But it's come in overweight and is likely to suffer severe compromises. Once in the air it's quite good though.