If youre not prepared to fund that or if you want it moved from the factory to wherever your dock is, itll be the equivalent of a trip to the stores for the Long Stand. They had a minimum legal duty of care & failed in that duty. And well wrong. the better & safer well be. Amp Hours would have been fun, but given we work in mega Watts, its more like megawatt-hours! Now their a laughing stock. Still to do a big RN ship in the drydock Nearly managed it a few years ago but a UK Minister bottled the risk assessment and wouldnt sign it off so it was an alongside maint period. Marine GT like the aviation engines they are derived from are designed to be overhauled off the wing/out of engine room. We will end up (on current plans) with a total force of around 70-75 operational frames with a proportion of that number not in the forward fleet. Looking at events from a wider perspective, the RN is fortunate to have two active carriers and was about to launch simultaneous deployments. What did they do on the invincible class as 2 of there names began with an I, Ahh so the big decks all have a letter on them relating to there name. @ The Ginge, I think youre dead on it. The SKF muff type coupling is a reliable method of connecting propeller shafts to propulsion prime mover. The reality is both QE & PoW have had numerous problems throughout their short lives. All achievable. Im not sure if the RAAF still gave/use/co-share Butterworth in Malaysia these days? As for Jacks comments these vessels take some of the strain from the USN carriers in providing a genuine strike capability for NATO in the North Atlantic area. AS is used for astern. If she doesnt make this Sept/Oct slot then its hard to blame them if the MOD gets a big no show bill, and shes then put on the long finger for a third attempt. So I dont believe its insoluble. Some thoughts are.. I dont think this will be quick unless all the parts are in stock. (Looks like ABP owe the UK a new dock gate at least for letting KGV gate fall into disrepair through neglect and a reminder that the USA wont allow its key docks be foreign owned as they see them as vital national assets. Anyway you dont need a carrier or even a frigate to have supervision of your EEZ , a patrol vessel will do but wait. The ship was formally commissioned into the Royal Navy at a ceremony in Portsmouth on 10 December 2019. The carrier has been busy recently. I do hope they can salvage testing for Ship Bourne Vertical Landing, maybe move equipment over to QE2. It wont cost millions to use tugs, we already use them every day. Side shores have mostly been dispensed with but that can depend on the Hull form of the ship being drydocked. Ive supervised shaft changes in a dock. CSG 21 had most of the portside and bow spots occupied, most of the time. CombatAir. The 65,000-tonne vessels are the largest in the Royal Navy. He also works for the NHS. The issue isnt that its broken/damaged but how good, efficient and speedy are the ability to repair! The letter outlined that the investigation covered various aspects of the ships design, build, acceptance phases, and operations during Fleet time. Fear not, the Gator Navy (USMC, especially the amphibious fleet) has an extremely influential lobby w/in Congress. Thanks. Well suspected. The motors never had a fault, they are very similar to the T45 motors (minor differences) , but again its hardly ever the motors that have an issue. Have a look at the dock on Google Earth. It could be worse. British Royal Navy HMS Prince of Wales was commissioned on December 10, 2019. The reason HMS Prince of Wales could not begin her planned deployment is that an external coupling that connects the outer propellor shaft to the drive shaft from the propulsion motors failed. The maintenance included replacing the drive-end CARB bearing and the non-drive-end spherical roller thrust bearings on all four pods. If the prop itself was badly damaged, that would effect the shaft by running out of centre. The fun part is doing tanks. Until the early 1970s a warship would commission with a new crew after a major refit. After that, who knows, as its all linked with future procurement of Tempest! This will not be a quick fix and expect PWLS be out of action for some time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_George_V_Graving_Dock. HMS Prince of Wales suffers propeller shaft issue - UK Defence Journal The Minister of State, James Cartlidge, confirmed the conclusion of the investigation, which began after the ship suffered a starboard shaft coupling failure upon sailing from Portsmouth in August 2022. Several contributory factors led to this misalignment and the subsequent incorrect assessment of the starboard shaft and couplings performance. Thanks Jon, Others have commented that the USMC, for one, would not tolerate being left behind as regards engine development for the B. Its moot here as the Wales doesnt have any. Both carriers cost a total of more than 6bn to build, each weighs . Read More "Building one aircraft carrier is a sign of national ambition. At what point does a ship in refit become unavailable until that refit is completed? Out of the EU and into the broken carrier club, George, what a scope, you got a mention on Sky News as the source. Especially as HMG doesnt want to invest in systems to support VSTOL. Timeframe may be subject to negotiation. It was more 2(+1) for 1. If so they dont pass shock testing. And to use hackneyed phrase, air is free and steel is cheap. The Americans will be relyingd on the QECs to deploy to the North Sea, Atlantic and Med, releasing USN assets to the Pacific. Bad Vibro readings probably wont show up because until it does let go (probably through metal fatigue) it will continue to do its job. With the subs, if the SSN fleet cant come soon enough theyre surely going to need an interim solution for an extra 2-3 subs maybe? Previously you had to rely on Navy News and whatever came out of the yards. BlocksRead more . Believe this is largely dependent on when/how Blk 4 upgrades progress. They are test aircraft specially instrumented for weapons data gathering. Bilge and keel blocks are usually less than 2metres high. Incorrect assembly, 2 Catastrophic failure of the outer sleeve due to material defect , 3 Incorrectly dimensioned shaft or inner sleeve of the coupling resulting in inadequate interference fit when assembled . HMS Prince of Wales suffers propeller shaft issue, Social Media and Comment Moderation Policy, Drone shots show Type 26 Frigate Cardiff emerge in Glasgow, HMS Defender hands over Glasgow affiliation to HMS Glasgow. You should suffer with me. Newish SK govtuncertain re their current defense program priorities. HMS Prince of Wales, the 3bn pride of the Navy, grinds to halt over 'failure to grease propeller shaft'. I remember a static test on one ship where a prop blade was damaged and the difference in sound between the shafts was obvious as was the vibration. Nice photo highlighting one of the empty 30mm/RWS mount positionsstill. Different ships from different nations have specific tasks to perform in a potential coalition operation, every ship cant be everything. Like I said when I imagined certain things because I dont have direct experience but understand those that do have amazing ingenuity- and easily found online these types of repair while in dry dock. The inner research scientist in me always questions the instrumentation first when Im looking at an anomalous result. I like RaM as an extra layer and its compact. Whilst I can see the points you make, the simple fact is as far as I can remember we never had this problem with the Invincible Class ships. Great comment. Please leave a comment below if you have something to say! Again modular repairs as suggested would require spare pods lying around, waiting for something to go wrong. Giving the possibility of extending CAP range for British and American F35Bs. Whether it be accidents like this or engineering write off. Very good. The Pompey solution might look good on paper but I suspect the costs would spiral due to ancient dock walls (unstable under that sort of pressure differential) and listed structures. We would flood the fwd tanks on tankers to raise the stern out of the water. Besides, a glance over the back end wouldnt tell you much the prop was possibly turning slowly anyway and only and the inertial of the coupling providing enough rotational momentum through the two parts of the coupling. Threaders in this cased means pissed off. She was an unlucky ship. Not entirely sure what relevance your hammerhead crane has in this scenario. Probably. We are still a big economic power and more reliant on world trade than most, added to which the threats to our way of life are coming from far afield. Odd it took so long to manifest itself though. Hopefully a very thorough root cause analysis will be done to determine if this is just bad luck, a bad part or if there is something unforeseen in the actual operation on the system Vs the design assumptions that needs to be fixed across all the shafts of the class. Could it possibly be that the area has no suitable existing infrastructure, is a very popular destination with cruise ships which are unfortunately prone to having propulsion casualties? As a frenchman, I express all my support to RN, sailors and Britain. Even so, if youre going to be short all the way around, it would at least be better from a deployability standpoint to have three flattops rather than two. a marine engineer I have been trying to imagine what could cause one to fail and I arrive at 3 alternatives . Some have said it would be a significant cost to modify for STOVL operations, Ive heard from some people (reportedly in the know), that modification arent that difficult. Would we not have been better off with E2x than the lucklustre and cheap Crowsnest? [17] The contract for the vessels was announced in July 2007, ending several years of delay over cost issues and British naval shipbuilding restructuring. Well, you can, but itll be putting strain on it all the time, so its just a matter of how long it takes before something gives. This incident highlights the unfortunate fact that there is no dry dock large enough to accommodate these vessels in their home port of Portsmouth. It is a simple tapered split sleeve, outside of which is a solid heavy steel tube which is forced axially by hydraulic pressure to close the inner sleeve to give a friction fit on each of the two shaft ends. HMS Prince Of Wales: The Largest And Most Powerful Warship Ever Built There must be individual logs and checklists for the prop shafts. Any decisions will be based on their report which will include measurements , Photos and detailed video. This breakdown is totally shameful: to the builders, the RN and the country. The days of a ship being relieved on station are long gone. Responsibility for payment has not yet been established therefore it would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage.. Im reasonably sure that the UK is the only country outside the US and potentially the Red Sea Pedestrians to have deployed the F35 operationally. HMS Prince of Wales (R09) | Royal Navy How many of those cruise ships do you think have spare pods sitting around for modular swap-out repairs as you and the OP suggested? We also has one of the largest EEZs in the world, spread from the Antarctic to the north seas, Atlantic to Pacific. Good the problem has been identified & is being fixed. Invincibles were bigger inside than their displacement showed. Well only have enough aircraft eventually for one carrier (if that) and I suspect itll be too important to lose. https://www.rolls-royce.com/~/media/Files/R/Rolls-Royce/documents/news/6-page-qe-booklet-tcm92-58802.pdf Im not sure the sketch is to scale but with reach shaft weighing in at about 230tons and the props at 33tons there isRead more . There is a genuine school of thought that some QEC type carriers are needed along with the Fords / Nimitz / Gators as the availability and costs of the Nimitz / Ford is eye watering. 1. Britain's biggest warship is today ready to resume her duties at sea. George is on Twitter at @geoallison, Comments may automatically be held for moderation by our team, they will be approved as soon as possible in accordance with our, "To deter war, one needs to prepare and train for it, with sufficient mass to sustain a lengthy conflict. You realise that linguistically that that is nonsense or are you so used to spouting it you dont notice? They were on one of the original designs BTW. I would imagine a pod is a modular repair basis, Do try to keep up I never take what some people say on the internet to be true. It notes that responsibility for payment has not yet been established and further comment on the matter would be inappropriate at this stage. If we were at war, wed do it wouldnt we? I spent a lifetime sorting bigger problems on bigger ships than this. Construction In the aftermath of the First World War, the Washington Naval Treaty was drawn up in 1922 in an effort to stop an arms race developing between Britain, Japan, France, Italy and the United States. For me the real question is what and how? HMS Queen Elizabeth, the Royal Navy's fleet flagship, and HMS Prince of Wales are expected to be at the forefront of the UK's sea operations for the next 50 years. 1. Dozens of cruise ships do have pods for very specific reasons which pertain to them. Every existential threat to this nation has always moved in some way to threaten trade routs and shipping lanes. Successful Sea Trial of UK's Aircraft Carrier, HMS Prince of Wales Very embarrassing, but of more concern is the possibility of shoddy workmanship. Its surrounded by other users of the dockyard. Dry docking the Royal Navys aircraft carriers what are the options? Engineers aboard HMS Prince of Wales turned on the diesel generators - a key milestone on the road to sending the 65,000-tonne warship to sea in the second half of next year. The terrorists that killed 67 UK citizens on 9/11 were in part trained and coordinated from Afghanistan. Random unpredictable failures are uncommon but can still occur even if equipment is well designed, maintained and operated. Thats the gymnastics I was trying to do, and unfortunately neither brain nor body is in good enough shape! Whoever (i) set the limits and/or (ii) designed a clearly ineffective vibration detection system should be firmly established & should be prosecuted through the courts for negligence. It may never have been installed right and have chosen this time to fail (properly not that likely). (For wider UK fiscal perspective, NHS England will spend 500m every 32 hours in 2021/22, not including Covid-specific additional expenditure which is another 500m every 129 hours this financial year. Much of the workforce which built this platform are available and HMS Caledonia is nearby to accommodate ship staff whilst repairs are taking place. This treaty limited the number of ships each nation was allowed to build and capped the tonnage of all capital ships at 35,000 tons. And we dont have enough escorts for all the stations now. Hi John, I was kind of half joshing about the second hand carrier, I was more thinking that as a contingency and force projection measure that some catobar training for the RAAF pilots could potentially mean carrier sharing with USN and even the French a bit like the RAF/RN and the US do with the F-35Bs on the QE. Seems there might be more. Also, as others have said, AH is for Ahead. Rosyth with all its constraints remains the only viable option for the foreseeable future. That explains the P on prince of Wales. The new Royal Navy carrier HMS Prince of Wales will be out of service for a total of about half a year for repairs to her propulsion system, a spokesman for the service told the BBC - after which. . In reality just a proof of concept. As you can see above, the vessel appears to have stopped whilst conducting manoeuvres off the Isle of Wight and s now at anchor. Prince of Wales', Already a Janes subscriber? They take up considerable deck space and beg the question as to..why? Routinely had 15+ parked on the roof. Instead, she will sail next week for the east coast of the US, most likely with her escorts HMS Defender, Diamond and Kent. . Dont think whatever happened occurred near the Isle of Wight. How long does such take to fix? Substantially agree w/ your text, especially, that the RAN SSN fleet will require substantial long-term investment. Build a cradle and remove rudders, props and pull tailshafts as there was no available dry dock. https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/a-great-scandale-for-the-french-1.266122. As for security, container ports are already well protected (no-one can just stroll in) and the dock is well-within the boundary. Im an artiste, and all this practical stuffs well over my head, but fascinating nonetheless. It was paid for with taxpayers money. Im assuming that theres got to be some commonality with the Phalanx system and its suppliers but yes, involving actual missiles is another level above. I know people criticise this and say its not applicable, but isnt it easier to swap a new pod in, if you have a failure, rather than all this complication of shafts and couplings. What there are are the first 3 UK aircraft, which are used to develop procedures and in clearing new weapons and capabilities. Like I say, mean time between failures on these couplings is vanishingly minute, as low as your car falling entirely in two whilst driving down the motorway. The only thing that isnt there is a QEC-sized dock. Having done numerous spot analyses over the years you need to distinguish between total capacity (which is around 40 and includes a full hangar) and deck spots which is a lot less. eSysman SuperYachts has done a couple of reports and videos about the Petrel on Utube, You wont know, but itd be difficult for the person who fitted it in the first place not to notice.