Watch the moment Royal Navy flagship HMS Prince of Wales sets sail from Portsmouth.GB News Home and Security Editor Mark White reports on the significant event which has seen families gather to see off Royal Navy officers the HMS Prince of Wales heads off for one of its biggest deployments yet.The £3bn aircraft carrier, which can hold up to 1,600 military personnel, will be deployed for eight months.It leads a multi-national fleet of warships to 40 countries across the Mediterranean, Middle East, south-east Asia, Japan and Australia.
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00:00It is without a doubt an awe-inspiring sight as we see the mighty HMS Prince of Wales coming
00:11just past the round tower with thousands of people lining.
00:16What a sound!
00:29Just thought I'd pause rather than trying to shout over the foghorn from HMS Prince of
00:35Wales here.
00:36And you can see actually lining the deck, this is Procedure Alpha it's known as, where hundreds
00:44of personnel from the ship go up onto the flight deck there and they are assuming a position
00:51right around the ship at the bow, at the stern, both port and starboard sides of this huge
01:00aircraft carrier to wave of course to the families, hats off, waving to the families who've come
01:08from all over.
01:09We were speaking a little earlier to a couple of families who've come all the way down from
01:14Hull, others from Liverpool.
01:16Right across the country there are people who have families on this ship heading out on what
01:25will be an eight month deployment, a very significant deployment to the other side of the world,
01:34stopping off in dozens of locations on the way.
01:38And of course, we're told that there is a port visit to Australia, which will be the first
01:44time that a British aircraft carrier of the new Queen Elizabeth class has docked at Portsmouth
01:52itself.
01:53And as we get this side on shot, you can just see what a huge aircraft carrier that is, 285
02:01metres long, 75 metres in width.
02:07And the official tonnage that was given for this aircraft carrier is 65,000 tonnes.
02:14There have been some sort of recalibrations of that and estimates now put it up to 75,000,
02:22maybe 80,000 tonnes.
02:24And as for the flight deck, it is enormous.
02:28There are four helicopters, one, two, three, four, five helicopters that I can see on board
02:35at the moment, Lynx aircraft at the front and Merlin helicopters towards the stern of this
02:45aircraft carrier.
02:47That is only just a small proportion of the air group that will assemble on this aircraft
02:57carrier because it's going to head now to the seas of Cornwall, where it will catch up
03:04with the rest of the carrier strike group, and then embark more helicopters before the
03:11F-35 combat jets.
03:14These fifth generation combat jets will go on board Prince of Wales, and we're told that
03:23potentially up to 24 of these jets, at least in the initial phase of this deployment, will
03:30be on this carrier.
03:31And if that is true or anywhere near 24, that will be the biggest deployment since the Falklands
03:39war way back in 1982 of combat aircraft in a marine environment for the UK.
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