HMS Queen Elizabeth has embarked the largest number of warplanes ever onto her deck as she prepares to take her place at the heart of a UK-led NATO Carrier Strike Group

Two squadrons of F-35B stealth jets, the UK’s 617 Squadron, The Dambusters and the US Marines Corps VMFA-211, The Wake Island Avengers, have joined the 65,000-tonne carrier as she sailed for exercises with allies in the North Sea.

“This is an incredibly exciting time for 617 Squadron as we begin a new era of partnership with the US Marine Corps building towards next year’s operational deployment with HMS Queen Elizabeth.

You need to go back more than three decades to find the UK operating anything on this scale or complexity and this is a first for Fifth-Generation carrier capability; the era of big-deck, fast jet carrier operations is back”

— Commander Mark Sparrow, 617 Squadron’s Commanding Officer

Usually based in Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Yuma, in Arizona, VMFA-211 arrived in the UK just under two weeks ago.

Landing at the home of the Lightning Force, RAF Marham after the trans-Atlantic flight, they worked up with 617 Squadron conducting the RAF led Exercise Point Blank before embarking in the carrier.

With a total of 15 jets and eight Merlin helicopters, it’s the largest concentration of fighter jets to operate at sea from a Royal Navy carrier since HMS Hermes in 1983, and the largest air group of fifth-generation fighters at sea anywhere in the world.

“The Wake Island Avengers are ready to work with the British sailors and aircrew on board HMS Queen Elizabeth.

We are looking forward to deploying alongside our British counterparts over the next few months, and we will work tirelessly as a part of this transatlantic naval force.

We are proud to play such an important role in the generation of an allies’ Carrier Strike capability.”

— Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Freshour USMC, VMFA-211 Commanding Officer

In this month’s Group Exercise, HMS Queen Elizabeth will be joined by seven Royal Navy destroyers, frigates and auxiliaries, plus other supporting units, to form a fully sovereign Carrier Strike Group, ready to fight on the surface and in the air.

The Carrier Strike Group will be put through its paces off the northeast coast of Scotland as part of Joint Warrior, NATO’s largest annual exercise.

HMS Queen Elizabeth and her 1680 sailors, aviators and marines are due to return to her homeport of Portsmouth in late October.