Simulated Carrier Battle Group Training – the arrival of the Aircraft Carrier QUEEN ELIZABETH in service is not far that away in the scale of things, though the aircraft have yet to be ordered!   Already Royal Navy air crew and operation rooms teams across linked by simulators are testing how the Fleet of tomorrow would work together in battle.

For example four (4) F-35B LIGHTNING II Joint Strike Fighters fended off an air attack against the Carrier Battle Group as a Type 45 Destroyer and ‘eye in the sky’ SEA KING ASaC7 form an aerial shield around the Flagship.     For the first time aircrew, operations room teams, scientists and technicians have tested how the technology will work together on the battlefield.    Fleet Air Arm, RAF and US Navy pilots ‘flew’ F-35B LIGHTNING II from simulators at BAE Samlesbury (Lancashire), while two SEA KING ASaC7 (‘bagger’) aircrew in Culdrose simulated the mission.   On the Isle of Wight, air warfare officers from the Type 45 Destroyer DUNCAN were at the controls of the “Queen Elizabeth carrier lab”, while on Portsdown Hill (Portsmouth) their counterparts, and fighter controllers, from another Type 45 DAUNTLESS were doing the same in the “Type 45 lab”.

The idea was to see whether the reams of data and information the SEA KING, Type 45, Aircraft Carrier and the four F-35B LIGHTNING II fighters could be passed from helicopter to fighter to ship in real time so decisions could be made and threats eliminated – exactly as would be expected were the QUEEN ELIZABETH Battle Group were on frontline operations.