The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) is the naval aviation component of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy (RN). The FAA is one of five RN fighting arms. As of 2023 it is a primarily helicopter force, though also operating the F-35 Lightning II carrier-based stealth fighter jointly with the Royal Air Force.
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 Hermes was a conventional British aircraft carrier and the last of the Centaur class.
HMS Invincible was the Royal Navy's lead ship of her class of three light aircraft carriers. She was launched on 3 May 1977 as the seventh ship to carry the name. She was originally designated as an anti-submarine warfare carrier, but was used as an aircraft carrier during the Falklands War, when she was deployed with HMS Hermes. She took over as flagship of the British fleet when Hermes was sold to India. Invincible was also deployed in the Yugoslav Wars and the Iraq War. In 2005, she was decommissioned, and was eventually sold for scrap in February 2011.
HMS Illustrious was a light aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy and the second of three Invincible-class ships constructed in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She was the fifth warship and second aircraft carrier to bear the name Illustrious, and was affectionately known to her crew as "Lusty". In 1982, the conflict in the Falklands necessitated that Illustrious be completed and rushed south to join her sister ship HMS Invincible and the veteran carrier HMS Hermes. To this end, she was brought forward by three months for completion at Swan Hunter Shipyard, then commissioned on 20 June 1982 at sea en route to Portsmouth Dockyard to take on board extra stores and crew. She arrived in the Falklands to relieve Invincible on 28 August 1982 in a steam past. Returning to the United Kingdom, she was not formally commissioned into the fleet until 20 March 1983. After her South Atlantic deployment, she was deployed on Operation Southern Watch in Iraq, then Operation Deny Flight in Bosnia during the 1990s and Operation Palliser in Sierra Leone in 2000. An extensive re-fit during 2002 prevented her from involvement in the 2003 Iraq War, but she was returned to service in time to assist British citizens trapped by the 2006 Lebanon War.
The Centaur class aircraft carrier was the final iteration of the 1942 Design Light Fleet Carrier developed by the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy during the Second World War. They were designed in 1943 to operate higher-performance aircraft than the preceding Majestic-class aircraft carrier. Four ships were laid down in 1944-1945 and completed in 1953-1959. Rapid developments in carrier warfare and technology overtook the ships even as they were under construction, and the associated costs of modernization led to ships being completed to different specifications. Only the last ship, HMS Hermes (R12), was fitted as a modern fixed-wing carrier; she was also the last of the class to retire in 2017 as INS Viraat.
Atlantic Conveyor was a British merchant navy ship, registered in Liverpool, that was requisitioned during the Falklands War.
Landing platform helicopter (LPH) is a term used by some navies to denote a type of amphibious warfare ship designed primarily to operate as a launch and recovery platform for helicopters and other VTOL aircraft. As such, they are considered a type of helicopter carrier.
The British Aerospace Sea Harrier is a naval short take-off and vertical landing/vertical take-off and landing jet fighter, reconnaissance and attack aircraft. It is the second member of the Harrier family developed. It first entered service with the Royal Navy in April 1980 as the Sea Harrier FRS1 and became informally known as the "Shar". Unusual in an era in which most naval and land-based air superiority fighters were large and supersonic, the principal role of the subsonic Sea Harrier was to provide air defence for Royal Navy task groups centred around the aircraft carriers.
Licence Renewed, first published in 1981, is the first novel by John Gardner featuring Ian Fleming's secret agent, James Bond. It was the first proper James Bond novel since Kingsley Amis's Colonel Sun in 1968. Carrying the Glidrose Publications copyright, it was first published in the United Kingdom by Jonathan Cape and in the United States by Richard Marek, a G. P. Putnam's Sons imprint.
An anti-submarine warfare carrier is a type of small aircraft carrier whose primary role is as the nucleus of an anti-submarine warfare hunter-killer group. This type of ship came into existence during the Cold War as a development of the escort carriers used in the ASW role in the North Atlantic during World War II.
A helicopter carrier is a type of aircraft carrier whose primary purpose is to operate helicopters. It has a large flight deck that occupies a substantial part of the deck, which can extend the full length of the ship like HMS Ocean of the Royal Navy (RN), or extend only partway, usually aft, as in the Soviet Navy's Moskva class or in the Chinese Navy's Type 0891A. It often also has a hangar deck for the storage and maintenance of rotorwing aircraft.
800 Naval Air Squadron was a Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm carrier-based squadron formed on 3 April 1933 by amalgamating No's 402 and 404 Flights.
801 Naval Air Squadron (NAS) was a Fleet Air Arm squadron of the Royal Navy formed in 1933 which fought in World War II, the Korean War and the Falklands War.
809 Naval Air Squadron, nicknamed the Immortals, is a squadron of the Fleet Air Arm of the United Kingdom. It was first formed in 1941 and flew in the Soviet Union, the Mediterranean and the Far East during the Second World War. After active service during the Suez Crisis, 809 was disbanded in 1959. Reformed in 1963 to fly Blackburn Buccaneers, the squadron was disbanded briefly in 1965–66, and then again in 1978. A brief period during the Falklands War saw 809 reformed to bring Sea Harrier FRS.1 aircraft south to the UK task group and to fly from HMS Illustrious.
The Ferranti Blue Fox was a British multi-role airborne radar designed and built for the Royal Navy by Ferranti Defence Systems in the late 1970s. It had a mixed record in service, and was replaced by the more capable Blue Vixen.
899 Naval Air Squadron was a squadron of the Fleet Air Arm of the United Kingdom.
In aviation, a ski-jump is an upwardly curved ramp that allows a fixed-wing aircraft to take off from a runway that is shorter than the aircraft normally requires. By providing an upward vector from the ski-jump's normal force, the aircraft is launched at an elevated angle and lift-off can be achieved at a lower airspeed than that required for flat takeoff, as it allows the aircraft more time to continue accelerating while airborne after leaving the runway. Ski-jumps are commonly used to launch shipborne aircraft from aircraft carriers that lack catapults.
