"With no planes to fly off her, we might as well sink her"?
A natural reef will make you popular with the greens.
New British aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth has sprung a leak. The warship takes on around 200 litres of water per hour thanks to a faulty propeller shaft gland packing, according to reports. The packing in question, according to The Sun, which broke the news and knocked up a graphic illustrating the problem, was rapidly …
Surely an artificial reef.Don't think sunken aircraft carrier reefs occur naturally.
Enough defects like leaking shaft seals and they just might occur as a natural result...
(You'd need significant seal failures, all pumps out, crew not able to make a bucket line (maybe no one thought to put buckets in, modern pumps being so good'n'all), watertight doors/hatches unable to be closed (or not sealing enough), and for some reason no ability to tow her back to port - at 200L/hr it'd take a very long time to even get a noticeable lowering in the waterline!)
Yes sea trials are to find problems.
But, y'know, with £3.5 Bn on this tub you'd think they'd managed to get the basics right.
Especially anything whose repair instructions start "First put ship in dry dock"
Because the ship is f**king huge.
It can still be used a helicopter carrier. UK still has some left of those.
It is one hell of an expensive helicopter carrier. The most expensive one in the world in fact.
This is especially when compared to what that other countries which used to operate Harriers and now are in line for the F32B have bought for a fraction of that money: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_ship_Juan_Carlos_I_(L61)
In fact, if you look at it, UK could have built ~ 8? ships of the same class for the same amount of money. ~1.5 more "power projection" bang for the same buck even before we take the landing craft launch capability into account. Unfortunately, someone in the Admiralty probably had an issue with the size of his anatomy and needed to order something BIG to prove himself. As a result the really simple idea that "If you build an aircraft carrier that big you might as well order proper planes, not VTOLs for it" did not compute.
meanwhile HMS Ocean which is a DEDICATED helicopter carrier and supports the marines and can actually come alongside in Devonport (home of the marines) returns home from her final deployment to be paid off. We'll soon have marines with NO marine capability!!!!!
http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/plymouth-news/hms-ocean-coming-home-christmas-942687
You really couldn't make this shit up!
Though defence commentators are, rather predictably, shouting about this being a non-story – and to a point it is an expected defect – it is very much a matter of public concern
Bollocks. It's a new ship, of new design, and there are some snags and the make will fix them. As the El Reg article says, isn't this the point of things like sea trials? TBH - I'd be very suspicious if there weren't any snags.
And why did El Reg spend most of the article being all calm, and then throw in that provocative statement. I expected better of El Reg.
It seems to be a thing with the Beeb recently. The News web site particularity. Lots of stories about nothing, or headlines focussed on a tiny, attention catching detail of a bigger story. Or massive exaggeration to the point if being fake news. One example of such. There was a headteachers' petition to the govt. recently. A genuine news story, a small deputation took it to no. 10. According to the Beeb headline at the time though headteachers were "marching on Downing St."
This story's a good example of the dumbing down on BBC News Online - not that they ran it, in this particular case, but because they picked up a non-starters because the tabloid sewer press both broke and framed the story the previous day. Ten years ago they would be reporting the fact that there was a screamsheet ruckus about it; now, the news agenda is set by the Mail.
There's been a stair-step down in quality in the last few months due to some management change or other - I forget the details - it was in Private Eye IIRC.
I think the BBC News has been dumbing down for quite a few years, especially on the Science and Technology front. My view is that the BBC source their newsreaders from classically educated graduates that generally have poor understanding of mathematics and science. Even in the business sections of the BBC some of the statistics and charts that they post would have failed O level maths/physics exams for being unclear and in many cases, incorrect. There are some exceptions but in general, the BBC is definitely heading down the sensationalist news road. If things don't improve, the BBC will be no better than the Sun and the Daily Mail. So sad.
I love the BBC, and those with strong ideological axes to grind (on various sides - more than two) who rave about bias annoy and bore me.
But I'm embarrassed when I see the 10 o'clock news once a week round my in-laws (long story. Also I have no telly or time.) Radio 4 is the last real, srs, news / current affairs channel left.
Radio 4 WAS the last real, srs, news / current affairs channel left, quite a time ago now..
FIFY.
Even the archers is a dumbed town bit of pc carp these days (compared to a few years ago).
Confession: I was working on my own and had radio 4 on. I was not near the set and left it on when TA came on. Father, I have sinned ....
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The Beeb are obviously having a slow news day too and have dragged the non-story out all day.
Including interviewing a retired submarine captain... And even having found a man who should have a mortal terror of a leaky boat, even he was pretty "meh".
Back of the envelope calculations tell me that at only 200 litres an hour, with no pumps running, and all water-tight doors (of which there are many) left wide open, she'd still be floating into the new year!
(Assuming she she didn't just fill up on one side and tip over of course).
Well, only The Sun it would appear, according to Reuters.
Having been a 'from new' Range Rover owner (and never again I might add) I know that the first thing you do is take the vehicle out for a road test and then promptly dropout it back to the showroom with a list of defects that need fixing.
"LoL National finances aren't like your house finances.
I would imagine there are similarities , like borrowing to avoid a small bit of pain eventually accumulates into a major headcache that would have been easier to deal with a bite at a time as it came up.
That wouldnt keep you elected though I guess.
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It's not so much the size of the leak; it's carrying the [teaspoon|bucket] up seven or eight decks from the bilge to dump overboard that takes the bulk of the time!
You then order some junior deckhand to take that bucket topside and dump its contents overboard, while leaving another, empty, bucket down in the bilge for the Master Leakscooper to fill. If one can't keep up that way you line up a bucket brigade.