The British sovereign, Queen Elizabeth II, will be on hand to christen the aircraft carrier that will be named in her honor. The HMS Queen Elizabeth will be launched this July.

Her commissioning will take place in 2017 with full operational capability expected by 2020.

HMS Queen Elizabeth will be manned by 1,600 sailors, carry 40 or more jets or helicopters and have a range of 16,100 kilometers.

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The Ministry of Defense described the HMS Queen Elizabeth, which carries pennant number R08, as a new class of aircraft carrier for the Royal Navy (RN). The second Queen Elizabeth-class or QE-class carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is expected to begin building at Rosyth, a major RN dockyard in Scotland, later this year.

Each supercarrier will weigh over 70,000 tons and will be capable of deploying fifth generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter "Lightning II" stealth fighters that can land vertically and take-off from short runways.

The ships are 280 meters long and will come with an air group of up to 36 F-35s and four helicopters. They are, however, capable of carrying up to 50 jets and helicopters at full load.

They will be the largest and most expensive warships ever built for the Royal Navy. The projected cost of the program is US$11 billion.

"The carriers will be versatile enough to be used across the full spectrum of military activity from war fighting to providing humanitarian aid and disaster relief," said the Ministry of Defense.

The ministry has committed to buy 138 F-35s from Lockheed Martin Corporation, the fighter's lead contractor.

Combined with the F-35s, the QE-class will strengthen the Royal Navy's ability to project power across the world, said U.K. defense secretary Philip Hammond.

TagsHMS Queen Elizabeth, supercarriers