HMS Illustrious, the Royal Navy's flagship aircraft carrier, arrived in Scotland today to undergo a £40million upgrade at the Rosyth Dockyard in Fife. The refit is expected to take 18 months.
Preparatory work will begin at Crombie, where the 685 foot long vessel arrived on Monday morning after sailing under the Forth bridges, before the maintenance and upgrade begins in March.
The work will involve replacing 500 metres of pipework, 650 valves and all eight exhausts; painting the ship with 540,000 litres of paint; and making the ship more fuel-efficient.
A previous refit was carried out at Rosyth in 2003 at a cost of £118 million.
HMS Illustrious was commissioned in Portsmouth in 1982 and has been involved in most major UK and Nato campaigns since, after first being deployed to the Falklands. Ii has since operated in the first Gulf War, Sierra Leone and the war in Afghanistan.The contract is part of a continuous programme of work at the Fife dockyard before the assembly of two new Navy super carriers begins.
She is seen here arriving firstly in the Firth of Forth arriving for her previous refit a few years earlier.
The following images were taken from the Forth Road Bridge not a plane despite what you may think.
Framed through the Rail Bridge for her 2010 refit
Passing under the Iconic Forth Rail Bridge
She is now not expected to leave the Firth of Forth until at least July 2011