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Aircraft carriers are among the largest types of warships due to their need for ample deck space. An aircraft carrier must be able to perform increasingly diverse mission sets.
This list of aircraft carriers contains aircraft carriers listed alphabetically by name. An aircraft carrier is a warship with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft, that serves as a seagoing airbase.
- Historical Overview
- Training Ships
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The first aircraft carrier commissioned into the U.S. Navy was USS Langley (CV-1) on 20 March 1922. The Langley was a converted Proteus-class collier, originally commissioned as USS Jupiter (AC-3). It was soon followed by the other pre-World War II classes: the Lexington class; USS Ranger, the first U.S. purpose-built carrier; theYorktown class, an...
During World War II, the United States Navy purchased two Great Lakes side-wheel paddle steamers and converted them into freshwater aircraft carrier training ships. Both vessels were designated with the hull classification symbol IX and lacked hangar decks, elevators or armaments. The role of these ships was for the training of pilots for carrier t...
Jun 20, 2024 · Learn about the origin, development, and features of aircraft carriers, naval vessels that launch and recover airplanes. Explore the role of carriers in World War II, the first nuclear-powered carrier, and the variations of carrier types.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- American civilian Eugene Ely was the first pilot to fly a plane off a specially built platform on the deck of the U.S. cruiser Birmingham at Hampto...
- The first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier was the Enterprise, launched by the United States on September 24, 1960.
- Aircraft carriers were used from the early stages of World War II. They became the dominant combat vessel after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor...
- During World War I the British navy developed the first true aircraft carrier with an unobstructed flight deck, the HMS Argus, which was built on a...
- USS Gerald R Ford Class (CVN-78) The world’s biggest aircraft carrier title belongs to the US Navy’s Gerald R Ford Class battleships. The first carrier in this class, USS Gerald R. Ford, was commissioned in May 2017, and the four remaining vessels announced for this class are under construction.
- Nimitz Class, USA. The US Navy’s ten Nimitz class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers are the second-largest aircraft carriers in the world. They are certainly one of the best breeds and flaunt all the features such battleships require.
- Queen Elizabeth Class, UK. The largest aircraft carriers of the UK Royal Navy are the third-largest aircraft carriers in the world. The biggest warships ever built for the British Navy, the Queen Elizabeth Class aircraft carriers are also the second-largest non-US Navy warships after Japan’s Yamato-class battleships.
- Fujian, China. Jiangnan Shipyard of China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation in Shanghai launched the nation’s third aircraft carrier on 17th June 2022.
Nov 12, 2021 · Aircraft carriers support and operate aircraft that engage in attacks on airborne, afloat and ashore targets that threaten free use of the sea and engage in sustained power projection...
Jun 19, 2024 · WASHINGTON (AP) — The Navy is weighing what to do about the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier, which has been battling Houthi rebel attacks on shipping in the Red Sea for nearly nine months. The question is how to replicate the carrier’s combat power if the ship returns home.
