HMS Queen Elizabeth returning to Portsmouth [Crown Copyright: LPhot Ben Corbett]
Britain’s biggest warship, HMS Queen Elizabeth, today returned home to Portsmouth for the first time as a fully-trained aircraft carrier.
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Royal Navy News Release, 02 July 2020: Future flagship HMS Queen Elizabeth has cleared her penultimate hurdle for front-line duties after ten hugely-demanding weeks around the UK, preparing for her maiden deployment in the new year.
A final package of training in the autumn – working alongside NATO and US allies – will confirm her ability to act as a task group flagship, so that she can lead a potent carrier strike force on front-line operations anywhere in the world.
In the 70 days since leaving Portsmouth at the end of April, the carrier has been almost exclusively at sea and clocked up 11,500 miles – the equivalent of the distance from her home base to Auckland, New Zealand.
