Brilliant...and they say the Scottish Parliament wastes money...

"The Ark Royal's upgrade reflects the changing world scene and the way the vast majority of the world's main navies are being transformed."

The changing world scene. Yes, developments mean that the UK should be able to hire out its aircraft carriers to the United Nations.

Good to see our naval power receiving some much-needed upgrading. However, too few aircraft can be carried by Ark Royal and her sister carriers, demonstrating the urgent requirement for the long-promised fleet carriers.

Great to see the superb Ark Royal back at sea after being fitted out in a Scottish dockyard.

She may be condiderably smaller than say the awesome American USS John C. Stennis but certainly with her new multi-role capabilities The Ark Royal is a sound investment for the U.K. and for The Royal Navy.

Hopefully she will sail for many more years to come.

[1: David] They are right - the Scotch El-of-a-Mess - is a waste of money - the central questions
are - how much did it cost - what's the projected running costs [including maintenance] - what's the cost of having MSPs [including phone+taxies+mortgages] How on Earth did Scotch democracy get away with it.

25 mil may sound like loads but given the refit and whats been down i would say thats pretty good value and nice to see it being done in Scotland :)

i meant to say DONE........Dam the housekeeper and her noisy hoovering :)

There is not much point spending all that money without having a prior articulated global military strategy
In todays terrorist environment how quickly can an aircraft carrier be deployed to a new danger zone
Dinosaurs to Disneyland !!!

There is still a roll for aircraft carriers. Even the
French understand that.....

I remember the Ark Royal before this one... That was real Naval air power... There was little that could outperform the old Phantom and the Buccaneer remains to this day one of best aircraft ever built.

The modern Ark Royal with it's subsonic Harrier would be no match for its predecessor...... The Harrier is of course now being phased out and there is likely to be a gap between it being scrapped and the arrival of the Navy version of the Joint Strike Fighter which of course isn't being built in Britain but in Italy or Spain or somewhere. That's because this country is now so impoverished it couldn't a UK production line.

As others have said, who writes this drivel. Not only do we have grammatical errors, but also factual errors.

"The Ark Royal is the biggest ship built for the Royal Navy since the Second World War"

Ark Royal III built by Cammell Laird, laid down on 3 May 1943 and launched 3 March 1950. She was completed 25 February 1955.

SHÂN ROSS, WWII ended for most people in 1945.

Agree with Ex Air Arm Pilot, we now have aircraft carriers soley for helicopters, the last Sea Harrier squadron having been decommissioned in April 2006.

A good job yes, but the RN desperately needs the planned Queen Elizabeth class carriers if Britain wants to remain a credible naval power. Hopefully this time a mistake made in 1966 will not be repeated: then planned fleet carriers were axed on cost basis. The Falklands first highlighted this error as it proved wrong the assumption that RAF planes could always operate from friendly ground and reach the theatre from there. Big platforms are also flexible to adapt to future needs