R09. Ark Royal and Prince of Wales

[Stuart Wilson]

Surely the Americans have the fight Idea about naming ships, name them after politicians and then they won't get cancelled/scrapped.

 

So how about we rename the carriers HMS Margaret Thatcher and HMS Tony Blair, Wait no that won't work half the Labour party hate him. How about HMS NHS? We could get a third carrier if we called it HMS Nicola Sturgeon!

 

And we can ask for a couple more squadrons of F-35s if instead of calling them "Lightnings" we call them "Boris Bombers"

 

And while my tongue may be firmly in my cheek, why do you think they've gone back to City names for the T26s? Remember the response of the US admiral when asked why the USN started naming submarines after cities instead of after fish as they always had. "Fish don't vote"

 

Stuart

[Terry1954]

7 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

These new-fangled jets, eh?

It's worse than that .......... I just checked and would you believe the good old centrifugal flow concept gave way to some axial flow gubbins some while ago it seems.

 

I just can't keep up.

 

Terry

[junglierating]

'Bout time we had 772 back....tried to talk Col.Lenny in to it for the SAR/HDS cabs on board QE but they went for Furious flt or somesuch nonsense 🤔🤣

[Chewbacca]

On 15/08/2020 at 09:35, Stuart Wilson said:

And while my tongue may be firmly in my cheek, why do you think they've gone back to City names for the T26s? Remember the response of the US admiral when asked why the USN started naming submarines after cities instead of after fish as they always had. "Fish don't vote"

 

Never under-estimate the named ship with her affiliated town.  Every ship in the RN is affiliated to at least one town, city or village but speaking as someone who had 2 T42s (BIRMINGHAM and GLASGOW), I can vouch for the fact that they gave us the warmest welcome whenever we visited (in BIRMINGHAM's case despite the fact that the city is about as far from the sea that it is possible to get in this country).

 

Thing that always amused me though was that the city of Glasgow would never grant HMS GLASGOW the freedom of the city because we wouldnlt tell them whether or not we carried nuclear weapons and there was a large sign as you entered the city that read "Welcome to Glasgow, a nuclear free zone", especially with Faslane and Coulport just down the road.

[davecov]

When I was on HMS SOUTHAMPTON we were supposed to visit Hull but due to local elections in Southampton we had a programme change and were sent to Southampton where dozens of CND protestors greeted us like sh*t. Needless to say, nearly everyone apart from the Duty Watch went off to Pompey for the weekend. Swapping Hull for Southampton was never going to go down well with a Pompey-based ship!

 

Another ship I was on (HMS ANTRIM) never got to go to Antrim due to the Troubles.

 

Dave