Brazil has long been an aircraft carrier power. São Paulo was meant to replace the carrier Minas Gerais, which was formerly the British Navy's HMS Vengeance and served that country from 1957 to 2001.

HMS Queen Elizabeth has taken more than eight years to build and is the first of two new carriers for the Navy; a second, the Prince of Wales, will follow in two years' time.

It was after a similar refurbishment that HMS Vengeance had a Trident missile ... was branded a laughing stock after its flagship aircraft carrier was pulled out of a NATO exercise due to a ...