The announcement has just been made that the contracts for the two carriers; Queen Elizabeth, and Prince Of Wales (both mis-named btw) has just been placed.
Er, I'm pretty sure I read that construction on
Queen Elizabeth started months ago. So they placed the orders/contracts
after construction already started? Is that standard practice?
[...] only one will ever get built; or, if a second one is it will be a floating platform for helicopters.
It's pretty much a certainty that
Queen Elizabeth will be completed. It's possible
Prince of Wales will be ditched in the name of budget cuts, but I think it has a more than fair chance of being completed. And if it does get built, it will almost certainly operate F-35's. Having a full-size carrier acting as a helicopter ferry would just be silly, not to mention being uneconomical to deploy such a significant asset in a ferrying role.
But even in a worst-case scenario and only a single air wing of F-35's was acquired, the jets could just be switched to whichever carrier is "in theatre" at any given time. The Royal Navy won't have both carriers on active deployment at the same time, and there are always maintenance cycles and such to take into account.
I'm also guessing that Queen Elizabeth will be built without catapults or arrestor cables, but Prince of Wales will be. I also figure that QE will get the full CATOBAR equipment just as the First of the F-35Cs enter the FAA. I'm also going to guess that the Brits will operate some mix for Super Hornets and Lightning IIs off of the carriers.
It's basically one or the other. If they go with STOVL first, then switching to CATOBAR for the next carrier will require retraining the crews in a very different style of carrier operations. Not to mention that they would need to purchase an entire new air wing of CATOBAR aircraft, and retrain the pilots to fly them. And it's a big enough deal switching from an F-35B to an F-35C, let alone training pilots for a totally new aircraft if for some reason they wanted to operate F/A-18's as well. Not to mention they would also need to establish a completely new maintenance structure for the F/A-18's.
Plus they would then be stuck with a very expensive wing of redundant F-35B's, which couldn't operate from the carriers because the ski jumps would be gone!
The Royal Navy have been very clear about their intentions. A change in policy would not only be even more expensive (major restructure of the flight deck to remove the ski ramp, plus purchasing and installing catapults, etc) and require more complex crew training, but would be a major change in operational doctrine. Which is
very unlikely to occur.
Also, yes, they are pretty silly names. Give me
Invincible,
Illustrious, or
Daring any day!