HMS Queen Elizabeth: Has the Royal Navy dropped a huge hint when the first F-35B will land?

And with the £3.1bn aircraft carrier now in America, has HMS Queen Elizabeth just dropped a hint as to when the milestone occasion will happen? Possibly.

Last night the ship sent out a message to its 52,000 followers on Twitter which could indicate the landing might happen within the next week.

Although there has been no official confirmation from the Ministry of Defence, the timing does fit in with previous comments by officers on the warship, who hoped the landing would take place at the end of September.

The ship's Twitter account posted: '˜Today the Fleet Commander @VAdmBenKey embarked. He will be residing with us for just under a week; only a routine visit from an Admiral we think, nothing special going on here! Lightning is forecast.'

The jet's full name is the F-35B Lightning II. 

It would be the first time in eight years that a jet has landed on the deck of a British aircraft carrier.

HMS Queen Elizabeth is understood to be heading towards the Naval Air Station Patuxent River, in Maryland, close to Washington DC, after having stopped off at the naval base in Norfolk, Virginia, earlier this week.

The Portsmouth-based warship is expected to conduct trials of the multimillion-pound F-35B for several weeks before eventually returning to Britain in December.