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Seven ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Invincible.
Ten ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Hermes, after Hermes, the messenger god of Greek mythology, while another was planned:
The Invincible class was a class of light aircraft carrier operated by the Royal Navy. Three ships were constructed: HMS Invincible, HMS Illustrious and HMS Ark Royal. The vessels were built as aviation-capable anti-submarine warfare (ASW) platforms to counter the Cold War North Atlantic Soviet submarine threat, and initially embarked Sea Harrier aircraft and Sea King HAS.1 anti-submarine helicopters. With cancellation of the aircraft carriers renewal programme in the 1960s, the three ships became the replacements for Ark Royal and Eagle fleet carriers and the Centaur-class light fleet carriers, and the Royal Navy's sole class of aircraft carrier.
HMS Ark Royal was a light aircraft carrier and former flagship of the Royal Navy. She was the third and final vessel of the Invincible class. She was built by Swan Hunter on the River Tyne and launched by them in 1981. Ark Royal was christened by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. She followed sister ships HMS Invincible and HMS Illustrious into service in 1985.
HMS Ark Royal was an aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy that was operated during the Second World War.
There have been five ships in the Royal Navy to bear the name HMS Illustrious. The ship's motto is "Vox Non Incerta" which translates as "No Uncertain Sound".
Two warships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Indomitable:
Ten ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Triumph. Another was planned, but renamed before being launched:
Six ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Edinburgh, for the Scottish city of Edinburgh. In addition, one ship of the Royal Navy has carried the similar name HMS Duke of Edinburgh.
HMS Ark Royal (R09) was an Audacious-class aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy and, when she was decommissioned in 1979, was the Royal Navy's last remaining conventional catapult and arrested-landing aircraft carrier. She was the first aircraft carrier to be equipped with an angled flight deck at its commissioning; her sister ship, HMS Eagle, was the Royal Navy's first angle-decked aircraft carrier after modification in 1954. Ark Royal was the only non-United States vessel to operate the McDonnell Douglas Phantom at sea.
Seven vessels of the British Royal Navy have been named HMS Valiant.
The Royal Navy has had ten ships named Swiftsure since 1573, including:
Eleven ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Unicorn, after the mythological creature, the unicorn:
HMS Active, the tenth Active, launched in 1929, was an A-class destroyer. She served in the Second World War, taking part in the sinking of four submarines. She was broken up in 1947.
820 Naval Air Squadron is a Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm carrier-based squadron flying the AgustaWestland Merlin HM2 in Anti-Submarine and Airborne Early Warning (AEW) roles from RNAS Culdrose.
808 Naval Air Squadron is a ship-based helicopter squadron of the Royal Australian Navy.
818 Naval Air Squadron was a Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm carrier-based squadron formed in August 1939. It served on a number of the Navy's aircraft carriers during the Second World War, serving in most of the theatres of the war, before decommissioning at the end of the war.
Aircraft carriers have their origins during the days of World War I. The earliest experiments consisted of fitting temporary "flying off" platforms to the gun turrets of the warships of several nations, notably the United States and the United Kingdom. The first ship to be modified with a permanent flight deck was the battlecruiser HMS Furious, which initially had a single flying-off deck forward of the original superstructure. Subsequently, she was modified with a separate "landing on" deck aft and later with a full flush deck. Other ships, often liners, were modified to have full flush flight decks, HMS Argus being the first to have such modification begun. Those first faltering steps gave little indication of just how important the aircraft carrier was to prove to be. During the inter-war years, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States built up significant carrier fleets so that by the beginning of World War II, they had 18 carriers between them. The 1940 Battle of Taranto and 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor in retrospect showed the world that the aircraft carrier was to be the most important ship in the modern fleet. Today, aircraft carriers are the capital ships of the navies they serve in, and in the case of modern US "supercarriers", they embark an air group that is effectively a small air force.
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