Well time for the NAVY to step in...
Prior to the
Strategic Defense Review (SDR) of 2010 the plan was to scrap both the
Queen Elizabeth and the
Prince of Wales. However (
Another economics lesson. 
) this didn't prove a viable option to the British Government due to the contract obligations which, and you'll love this, would have made it
more expensive to scrap them, then to finish building them at the stage in the construction the ships were in at the time. A fortune was already invested just in infrastructure and coordination of at least five major shipyards to "put the pieces together" not least of which included building the largest shipyard crane in the history of British shipbuilding. These carriers are the
largest ships ever built in the long illustrious history of the Royal Navy.
All my
respect to the RN and the then Soviet Navies as I have a pair of Submarine Dolphins from each in my "Shadow Box" for all the fun and sometimes white knuckle games we played that I've been involved with.
This situation is not unprecedented, for instance we saw the same with the
MEADS Program which forced both the U.S and Italy to see the program through until it's operational testing and qualification status were completed. Germany was to back out as well, however, due to the contract environment it became favorable to stay in it and would in turn be the
only country left standing that is operating the system with the possibility of Poland getting the system in the near future. The breaking of the contract for MEADS would've been in the hundreds of million dollars in penalties each for each country involved for what is considered the most advanced SAM in current use. The Carriers would've cost the UK in the billions of dollars if I remember correctly, to back out of the carriers.
The bottom-line is currently both carriers will be activated (When they realized they were stuck with both carriers, the
Prince of Wales would've been "mothballed". And given the current world events this has turned out to be a most fortuitous decision.
I tried to get as close to a USN Carrier as possible, as us NAVY types like discussing these things in terms of "
displacement" regarding a ships size. Also when noting aircraft capacity/or compliment it will do the reader well to realize this will include all types of aircraft such as EW, ASW, RECON, ATTACK etc. including fixed wing and rotor craft.
The
Queen Elizabeth Class is designed as a multi-mission platform unlike our carriers since the RN doesn't have specialized ships for instance like our Amphibious landing ships (LHA) that'll carrying our
F-35B (Which is the only one I see worthwhile to have.). With that in mind they'll carry Royal Marines with the air-wing to compliment that mission to include the APACHE helos. These ships are of the ideal size and configuration for this versatility in the multi-mission environments the modern Navies face in both the Anti-Terrorist and current Deterrence role due to the rise and resurgence of the Russian and now Chinese Navies. Also the UK still has issues in dealing with the Falklands question in particular.
A note of the FORRESTAL Class carriers the compliment of aircraft is 85 and the
USS FORRESTAL (CVA-59) was the largest in displacement at 59,900 tons ((QE Class is 65,000 tons.) the rest of the class was something in the 56K and "something" range. The FORRESTAL Class is considered the first "
Super Carrier" Class as well.
So next some articles and graphs/charts etc.
http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and...for-the-future
https://www.defenseindustrydaily.com...updated-01630/
https://news.usni.org/2015/09/17/dse...abeth-carriers
Prospective...
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._chart.svg.png
http://www.military-today.com/navy/t...t_carriers.htm
Comparison...
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/nav_legacy.asp?id=64
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...scrapyard.html
You'll find earlier posts regarding this topic in this thread, though I did delve deeper into it here. Anyway anything on the surface is nothing but a "
TARGET" anyway!?!
My job is done here so I can enjoy the start of my weekend with a little "shut eye" time-enjoy the rest of yours!!
Regards,
Pat