This afternoon the Royal Navy hosted a ‘live Twitter chat’ with Captain Simon Petitt from HMS Queen Elizabeth.
Live Q&A session with Capt Simon Petitt @RoyalNavy from 1400-1500 #askQnlz pic.twitter.com/VOuJuwghix
— HMS Queen Elizabeth🇬🇧 (@HMSQNLZ) October 7, 2015
Questions raised from the trivial to the very interesting including this gem from yours truly;
#askQnlz Will there be a reference card for working out deck length in double decker buses and fuel tank capacity in swimming pools issued
— Think Defence (@thinkdefence) October 7, 2015
Am on holiday, don’t expect anything too serious!
Social media engagement is an important strand of the MoD’s engagement strategy and I thought this was done really well.
Many of the questions were not answered within the hour and of course, there were questions that were difficult or impossible to answer within the bounds of policy compliance and security, but on the whole, they were answered with humour and openness. The hash tag search page took a while to update which meant that it looked like most of the questions were not answered within the hour but tracking the individual questions revealed a range of answers.
.Good question, well asked. To be honest I dont know – its not been laid yet. sorry.#askQNLZ https://t.co/IQIQpci1Uu
— HMS Queen Elizabeth🇬🇧 (@HMSQNLZ) October 7, 2015
.We sail late 2016 for sea trials. Vessel acceptance late 2017, in Portsmouth earlier that year https://t.co/5kIYSxZ551
— HMS Queen Elizabeth🇬🇧 (@HMSQNLZ) October 7, 2015
We have operating theatre, ward, high dependency beds, dental surgery, GP and pharmacy. Role 2 plus capable.#askQNLZ https://t.co/tl4XaHdZ8e
— HMS Queen Elizabeth🇬🇧 (@HMSQNLZ) October 7, 2015
Not at the moment but I have no doubts that we will look at this very soon – we have the space. #askqnlz https://t.co/h8uVQLvRVg
— HMS Queen Elizabeth🇬🇧 (@HMSQNLZ) October 7, 2015
We are a lean manned ship, so it will need to be short words! #askqnlz https://t.co/13IqTpuAYe
— HMS Queen Elizabeth🇬🇧 (@HMSQNLZ) October 7, 2015
Read more at the link
All good stuff I think.
So far I’ve found their twitter account to be pretty good, with some honest and personable answers, especially in the face of very ignorant questions at times.
LCVP Mk5 answer particularly.
The LCVP answer is quite surprising (“Not at the moment but I have no doubts that we will look at this very soon – we have the space.”). What’s supposed to dangle from those whopping sponsons if not a few LCVP :-(
I don’t know about the fuel tanks but the hangar is the size of 12 Olympic swimming pools. I believe the deck is the length of 40 London buses but whether we will ever see that many deployed….
20 articulated buses
He failed to answer fully some questions any took too long between answers.
Other than that, it worked.
Twelve London buses will be the usual peacetime deployment, with the possibility to surge in emergencies, in practice probably a few New York cabs and San Francisco tram cars.
That’ll be 30 bendy-busses then. The trailer-half of the bus isn’t nearly as long as the front section! ;-)