In numbers: HMS Queen Elizabeth

THE QE Class Aircraft Carriers will be the largest surface warships ever constructed for the Royal Navy.

- The ships will be 65,000 tonnes at full displacement.

- Length: 280m

- Width: 70m

- Range: 8,000 to 10,000 nautical miles.

- The first ship, HMS Queen Elizabeth, is due to be delivered in 2016.

- Each ship has two propellers which together will generate 80MW of power - enough to run 1,000 family cars or 50 high speed trains.

- 56m from keel to masthead, which is four metres taller than Niagara Falls.

- The distribution network on board will generate enough energy to power 300,000 kettles or 5,500 family homes.

- 1.5 million square metres of paintwork, which is 370 acres, or slightly more than the acreage of Hyde Park.

- Each propellers will weigh 33 tonnes – nearly two and half times as heavy as a double-decker bus and one and half times as high.

- Capable of a top speed in excess of 25 knots.

- 80,000 tonnes of steel being used in the two ships, three times that used in Wembley Stadium.

- Weapons: Designed to receive the latest generation of the Phalanx close-in weapon system for defence. Each ship is also designed to receive 30mm guns and mini-guns located to counter asymmetric threats.

- Power: 2 x Rolls-Royce MT30 gas turbines and 4 x diesel generator sets, giving total installed power of 109MWe.

- The programme is the single biggest manufacturing project under way in the UK, employing some 10,000 people.