THE two Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers will be the largest and most powerful warships ever built for the Royal Navy.

The ships - HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales - will be used by all three sectors of the UK armed forces and deployed around the world supporting war efforts, providing humanitarian aid and disaster relief.

Each will have a crew of around 670, rising to 1600 including pilots and air crews.

The vessels are expected to be capable of carrying 40 aircraft, a maximum of 36 F-35s and four helicopters.

The Queen Elizabeth construction - which began in 2009 in Glasgow - has sustained 8000 jobs in the UK at more than 100 companies.

The carrier is due to enter service in 2020 and will be based at Portsmouth, where she is scheduled to arrive in 2017.

Blocks of the 65,000 ton ship were manufactured at yards in Rosyth, Portsmouth, on the Clyde, Devon and on the Tyne, before being assembled in the dockyard at Rosyth.

The ship was named last July and her huge diesel generators were powered up for the first time last month in Rosyth.

The diesel generator sets will provide sufficient electrical power to drive the ship at cruise speeds. When higher speed is required, two gas turbine alternators will also be used. Together they will produce 109MW of power - enough to power a medium-sized town.

Towering at 56 metres and covering 4.5 acres, HMS Queen Elizabeth is so big that each of its two propellers weigh 33 tons.

As with HMS Prince Wales - which is due to enter into service a couple of years later - there will be four galleys on board and four large dining areas which will be manned by 67 catering staff. The largest dining room has the capacity to serve 960 crew members in one hour.

Each ship will also have an eight bed medical suite, operating theatre and dental surgery, which will be managed by 11 medical staff.

Crew facilities on board both ships will include a cinema and fitness suites in order to provide crew members, some of whom will be away from home for months at a time, with a range of recreational activities. Crew members will have personal access to email and the internet.

HMS Queen Elizabeth's systems are now being tested and in 2016 the ship will be handed over to the Royal Navy for sea trials.

Both warships are being built by the Aircraft Carrier Alliance, a partnership between BAE Systems, Thales UK, Babcock and the Ministry of Defence.

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH

THERE have been more than 20 ships named Elizabeth, the list of Battle Honours for which extends from the Armada in 1588 to Guadeloupe in 1810.

Just one ship by the name HMS Queen Elizabeth has served with the Royal Navy – as the lead ship of an important and innovative class of battleships which served with great distinction in both World Wars.

With 15 inch guns as her principal armament, the first HMS Queen Elizabeth was a 33,000 ton battleship.

Built in Portsmouth, she was launched in 1913 and was completed the following year. Her service history during the World Wars included the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet during World War I. Despite damage from torpedoes during World War II, she went on to take part in operations in the Indian Ocean before returning home.

HMS PRINCE OF WALES

THE Royal Navy's first ship named HMS Prince of Wales was originally a French privateer, commissioned on behalf of the ex-King James, then taken as prize by HMS York in 1693 and brought into service as a Sixth Rate ship, armed with 14 guns.

There have been a further seven Royal Navy ships called Prince of Wales.

The most recent was a 'King George V' Class battleship, built by Cammell Laird in 1939. The service history of this ship included the Battle of the Denmark Straight during which the German battle ship, The Bismarck, was destroyed.

In 1941, HMS Prince of Wales transported Prime Minister Winston Churchill to Newfoundland where he met with the then President of the United States, Franklin D Roosevelt, to agree the Atlantic Charter.