"First gain the victory and then make the best use of it you can."
- Horatio Nelson

HMS Ark Royal was a light aircraft carrier and former flagship of the Royal Navy. She was the third and final vessel of Invincible class. She was built by Swan Hunter on the River Tyne and launched by them in 1981. Ark Royal was christened by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. She followed sister ships HMS Invincible and HMS Illustrious into service in 1985.

Affectionately known as The Mighty Ark, she is the fifth Royal Navy ship to have borne the name of the 1587 flagship that defeated the Spanish Armada in 1588. Originally intended to be named Indomitable to match the rest of the class, this was changed due to the public reaction to the loss of the Ark Royal name after the scrapping of the previous Ark Royal in 1980, after 30 years' service.

Slightly larger than her sister ships, and with a steeper ski-jump ramp, Ark Royal carried the STOVL (Short Take Off and Vertical Landing) Harrier Jump Jet aircraft, as well as various helicopters. With a crew complement of over 1,000 sailors and aviators, she saw active service in the 1990s Bosnian War and the 2003 Invasion of Iraq.

Originally due to be retired in 2016, Ark Royal was instead decommissioned on March 11th, 2011, as part of the Navy restructuring portion of the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review. After Ark Royal's decommissioning HMS Albion replaced her as the Royal Navy flagship. Ark Royal was sold for scrap to the Turkish company Leyal Ship Recycling and left Portsmouth in May 2013.

Pictured here is a 1:700 scale replica of the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal (R07), as it participated in Operation Cunningham 2010. Pre-order! Price and ship date to be determined.

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Historical Account: "Operation Cunningham" - During the air travel disruption after the 2010 Eyjafjallajokull eruption, the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, assigned Ark Royal and Ocean to rescue stranded travelers across the English Channel in Operation Cunningham. In June 2010, Ark Royal was in Halifax, Nova Scotia to take part in the Royal Canadian Navy Centennial Celebrations, where she was visited by the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, on his way to the G20 summit in Toronto. During this time a V-22 Osprey visited the ship, again increasing its capabilities.

On October 19th, 2010, BBC News reported that the ship was to be decommissioned and scrapped earlier than expected, as part of the coalition government's spending review and expected 8 percent cut to the British defense budget to be announced later that week, to be replaced in the long run with HMS Prince of Wales. A campaign was begun in November 2010 to retain the name Ark Royal for one of the new carriers. On December 3rd, 2010, the amphibious warfare ship HMS Albion was announced as Ark Royal's successor as the Royal Navy's flagship. In recognition of the ship's decommissioning, Portsmouth F.C. added the ship's motto to its 2011/12 season kit.

On the evening of October 19th, the ship arrived at Portsmouth ready to be decommissioned and laid up. On November 5th, she was visited by Queen Elizabeth at Portsmouth before sailing to Loch Long for the removal of all her munitions. She then left the River Clyde on November 17th on her final voyage before decommissioning, visiting North Shields on 18-22 November and Hamburg for five days from November 25th. The latter was her last overseas visit, repeating a previous one in 2007. During the voyage she launched four Harrier GR9s for the last time in the North Sea on November 24th.