Note: the first paragraph of this letter is now obsolete; both carriers are now operational although one has already broken down. Unfortunately the rest is still relevant.

The Editor,
The Daily Telegraph

Sir,

I am afraid that the Russians have a point in this row about aircraft carriers. Theirs may be rusty but it has aircraft and lots of missiles. Ours will have no teeth at all for years and so will indeed be a nice fat target.

The ‘Queen Elizabeth’ is the worst-conceived major warship since the battlecruiser. With its immense size it should have had a wide choice of roles to perform and aircraft to operate, launched by catapults. Instead, its ski-jump bows make it impossible for it to operate conventional aircraft. That restricts her to operating vertical or short take-off and landing (VSTOL) jets only, and helicopters.

After Mr Hammond scrapped the Harriers there is only one jet of that kind, the immensely expensive and complex American F-35B, of which we can afford but a few. Compared with its conventional equivalent, the catapult-launched F35C which the US Navy will operate, our version will be condemned by the deadweight of its VSTOL gear to mediocre payload, range and performance.

The option of the conventional American F-18 Super Hornet (excellent, older, but cheaper than F-35) or the French Rafale, is ruled out. Sharing the aircraft carried by French or American carriers will be impossible. In the Falklands, ships were lost because the fleet had no long range airborne early warning. Then as now we rely on helicopters, unable to fly high, far or for long. The new carriers, unlike the French carrier Charles de Gaulle, cannot operate anything better. We can only hope that, as in the past, the professionalism of our sailors will overcome the mediocrity of their equipment.

Yours faithfully,

David Coleman