New British aircraft carriers will be second largest afloat

Britain's new generation of aircraft carriers are beginning to take shape with the first of two planned vessels - the HMS Queen Elizabeth - now expected to enter service around 2016. Though still middleweights when compared to the USA's 100,000t displacement Nimtz class, the new vessels will still be the second biggest carriers afloat, displacing 65,000t, carrying more than 8,600 tons of fuel, 1,200+ personnel, 36 F-35B Joint Strike Fighters and four EH-101 Merlin helicopters, with a 16,000sqm flight deck that, as one of the design team recently put it to the Daily Mail, "would be a par four" if you covered it in grass.

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