'Jealous' American F-35 fighter pilots 'champing at the bit' to fly from Royal Navy aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth, senior UK officer says

F-35B pilots from the United States Marine Corps will be embarking on the £3.1bn warship in autumn, alongside their British counterparts.

In all, up to 15 of the hi-tech stealth jets will be on board the 65,000-tonne leviathan when she heads back to sea – the largest deployment of supersonic aircraft on the carrier so far.

The move is all part of the final phase of tests ahead of the Portsmouth-based warship’s first operational mission next year, which will see a squadron of US F-35s embarked on board.

Commodore Steve Moorhouse, the head of Britain’s carrier strike group, said the Americans could not wait to get on board the navy’s behemoth warship, which is the only class of vessel in the world specifically designed to operate with the F-35B.

Speaking to The News as Queen Elizabeth returned home to Portsmouth after 10 weeks at sea, he said: ‘We’re working really closely with the United States, who are keeping a very close eye on us – they’re hugely jealous to see aircraft carriers like this, that are designed around integrating the F-35.

‘The Americans are genuinely taken aback by it and hugely looking forward to getting involved in working with us.

‘I know when they embark in the autumn they are looking forward to it. They are champing at the bit to get involved.’

SEE ALSO: F-35 pilots reach new heights to set record-breaking number of flights from HMS Queen Elizabeth

Queen Elizabeth is expected to depart Portsmouth towards the end of September for her final training event.

She will link up with Nato forces at sea to test whether the warship and its crew can operate as a flagship of a carrier task group.

It is the last hurdle to overcome before she sets sail on her first operational mission next year, which will take her to the Mediterranean, Gulf and the Far East.

Queen Elizabeth’s skipper, Captain Angus Essenhigh, said the autumn war games would be ‘even grander’ in scale than anything attempted so far.

He added: ‘We’re all hugely excited. We’re going to have to be very careful with Covid again and we will go through the same measures we undertook to get to sea this time around but we’re very excited to get on with it and get back out there.’

HMS Queen Elizabeth is the first of two new aircraft carriers built for the Royal Navy.

Her sister ship, HMS Prince of Wales, is currently alongside at Portsmouth Naval Base.

She is expected to deploy to America in a couple of years to carry out new trials with the F-35, as well as testing out a number of hi-tech unmanned aircraft.

It’s hoped she will carry out her first operational mission in 2023.

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