Habia Launches Defence Cables for QEC Aircraft Carriers

Friday, Aug 06, 2010

Habia Cable Supplies Defence Cables for QEC Aircraft Carriers

As construction of ship's giant flight deck for the first of the Royal Navy's new UK CVF QEC aircraft carriers began on the Mersey recently at the Cammell Laird shipyard, Habia Cable is delighted to be involved in the design and supply of custom multicore and def stan approved cables for the project.

The Habia Cable range of defence standard naval cables includes def stan approved wires and cables and custom designed multicore cables to defence standard 61-12 part 25. Habia Cable supply a whole range of defence standard wires and cables for a wide range of applications. The primary cores are to def stan 61-12 part 18 and the jacket conforms to 61-12 part 31.

About the Queen Elizabeth Class (QEC) Aircraft Carriers
HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales are due to enter service in 2014 and 2016 respectively and each ship will have an operational range of 10,000 nautical miles and the capacity to carry 40 aircraft, a ship crew of 600 and an airgroup crew of up to 900.   Each ship is 56m tall from keel to masthead – this is 6 metres taller than Nelson’s Column, and each will contain over 2.5 million metres of cable.

At 280 metres long and 70 metres wide, the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers will be bigger than any aircraft carriers currently in service, and will provide four acres of sovereign territory, anywhere in the world.

Propulsion wil be provided by two Rolls-Royce Marine 36MW MT30 gas turbine alternators and four Wartsila 38 diesel engines.  The gas turbines and diesels are the largest supplied to the Royal Navy and their combined power feeds the low-voltage system and the shaft driven propellers, with total installed power approaching 110MW.

CVF will carry over 8,600t of fuel to support both the vessel and aircraft.

The aircraft carriers hanger deck is 155 metres long, 33.5 metres wide and up to 10 metres high, accommodating up to 20 fixed and rotary wing aircraft.   The maximum launch rate is 24 aircraft in 15 minutes and the maximum recovery rate is 24 aircraft in 24 minutes. The CVF is three times larger than the 20,000t UK Invincible Class carriers and the hull will be nine-decks deep plus the flight deck.

The carrier will support joint combat aircraft carrying out up to 420 sorties over five days and be able to conduct day and night time operations. The maximum sortie rate is 110 joint combat aircraft sorties in a 24-hour period.

Source: Habia