Huge sections of the future carrier are joined

IF YOU want an idea of the scale of Britain’s future carriers, this photograph should provide a few clues.

This is one gigantic section of HMS Queen Elizabeth being manoeuvred into the ship hall at BAE Systems’ Govan yard on the Clyde...

...where it was attached to another section to form Lower Block 03 – the mid-section – of the 65,000-tonne leviathan.

It took just an hour to move this segment from one part of the yard to the shed using a series of remote-controlled transporters and a team of 20 workers.

When complete the now joined block will weigh more than 9,300 tonnes. It stands 23 metres tall (75ft) and is 40 metres wide (131ft). And big though this section is, it only goes up to the hangar deck.

“Seeing the mid-section of the carrier come together brings into sharp focus the sheer scale and complexity of this engineering feat,” said Steven Carroll, in charge of the carrier project at BAE Systems.

“It’s one of the biggest engineering projects in the UK today – second only to the 2012 Olympics – and we’re all very proud to be a part of it.”

Six yards across the UK and 8,000 shipwrights, technicians and engineers are building sections of the two carriers, with thousands more people employed in the enormous supply chain providing kit for the ships.

Fitting out of Lower Block 03 is now being carried out before the block is floated around to Rosyth where the Queen Elizabeth is being assembled later this year.