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Anyone wanna buy HMS ARK ROYAL, It would make a great hotel plus add on a night club etc!

What's the fuel consumption like?

David Johnson wrote:

> What's the fuel consumption like?

It's a bit of a guzzler but remember, with one of these you just take all the oil you want and don't have to pay for it!

Yeah I thought I would buy it and then lease it back to the Royal Navy as and when they needed it in Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, Saudi Arabia.....etc etc.

Either that or dock it next to Roman Abramovich's yacht just to take the piss.

Cheers
D

"Yeah I thought I would buy it and then lease it back to the Royal Navy as and when they needed it in Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, Saudi Arabia.....etc etc."

After you have renamed it "Le Ark Royal"

There seems to be some misguided hysteria regarding the Ark.
The ship is 25 years old and has been used extensively, and not swung round a buoy off Spithead. Therefore her hull has suffered considerable wracking and seeing the documentary recently of her last deployment it was evident that the hull is falling apart from the damage that required docking to repair the ballast and fuel tanks which had split along their seems allowing fuel contamination.
Most RN ships have a hull life of up to 30 years which would include at least one full refit. The Ark hasn't lasted as long as the Navy would have liked but to keep her in service would cost a fortune, which the Navy aint not got.
What is lamentable is the previous administrations ordering and contract details for the "new" carriers.
How on earth they got themselves into a situation where it would cost more to cancel the project than have the ship(s) built and placed into service is beyond me. War Box must still be full of Sir Humphreys.
But that's B Liar and Broon for you. Fucking pair of lying useless bastards.

Rodders:

The carrier contract was written that way because the shipbuilding industry know that government are cunts. The whole British shipbuilding industry (what's left of it) had to be brought in on this huge contract, and if it was cancelled (which I'm quite sure this coalition would have if they could have), then the industry would have been dead, with no work and everything tied up in a cancelled contract. Because they are not stupid, they made sure that if the government wished to cancel, they would have to pay up in full anyway. and I'm bloody glad they did.

As to Ark Royal, I'm not sure what documentary you saw, there was one about Illustrious last year. She did have a few problems, but still managed a successful deployment to the far east. The Ark was recently refitted (more money pissed away in hindsight) and was meant to stay in service till 2014. I'm quite sure that would have been possible. The Indians are still using HMS Hermes, and we sold her to them in 1984, and the Americans are still sailing USS Enterprise, which entered serivce in 1961. Looked after properly, carriers can survive to a great age, I just hope we get the use out of the two new carriers building, though knowing how this country is run I wouldn't bet on it.

The documentary was recent and was shot aboard Ark on her last commission. Though on her deployment they didn't know that it was her last. It took place at the time of the Icelandic volcano eruptions which grounded all UK aircraft, and saw the Harriers flown off the Ark as she was operating in the "Ash Cloud" area. It is on cable, not terrestrial.
Our unbeloved PM was a visitor in the States and the Navy bulled the ship up as only the Navy can to receive Cameroon.
The US ship designers and builders seem to design and build longevity into their hulls. Why the UK shipbuilders can't is beyond me. I am sure they could, but I guess that they are building to a spec which is probably the cheapest. Though, with hardly any shipbuilders left I don't see why they couldn't build longevity into the hulls. At the end of the day I suppose it is down to the pennies, or, seeing how much they can screw out of the government.

Well, not to be outdone - I can boast that the Aussie department of defense spent just on half a billion dollars on 11 second hand Sea Sprite helicopters which were crap and couldn't even fly basic missions without troubles.

They spent another half a billion trying to get the yanks who sold them to us to fix them up. Eventually, they just scrapped these 40 year old useless helicopters. Goodbye another billion.

We never got our money back and it sounded like it was going to cost another billion in lawyers fees to even try!

Hey Deano, life's a bitch, and then you get shot by a helicopter gunship. go figure.