An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a naval force to project air power worldwide without depending on local bases for staging aircraft operations. Carriers have evolved since their inception in the early twentieth century from wooden vessels used to deploy balloons to nuclear-powered warships that carry numerous fighters, strike aircraft, helicopters, and other types of aircraft. While heavier aircraft such as fixed-wing gunships and bombers have been launched from aircraft carriers, these aircraft have not landed on a carrier. By its diplomatic and tactical power, its mobility, its autonomy and the variety of its means, the aircraft carrier is often the centerpiece of modern combat fleets. Tactically or even strategically, it replaced the battleship in the role of flagship of a fleet. One of its great advantages is that, by sailing in international waters, it does not interfere with any territorial sovereignty and thus obviates the need for overflight authorizations from third-party countries, reduces the times and transit distances of aircraft and therefore significantly increases the time of availability on the combat zone.
The Hawker Siddeley Harrier is a British jet-powered attack aircraft designed and produced by the British aerospace company Hawker Siddeley. It was the first operational ground attack and reconnaissance aircraft with vertical/short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) capabilities and the only truly successful V/STOL design of its era.
The Invincible class was a class of light aircraft carrier operated by the Royal Navy. Three ships were constructed: HMS Invincible, HMS Illustrious and HMS Ark Royal. The vessels were built as aviation-capable anti-submarine warfare (ASW) platforms to counter the Cold War North Atlantic Soviet submarine threat, and initially embarked Sea Harrier aircraft and Sea King HAS.1 anti-submarine helicopters. With cancellation of the aircraft carriers renewal programme in the 1960s, the three ships became the replacements for Ark Royal and Eagle fleet carriers and the Centaur-class light fleet carriers, and the Royal Navy's sole class of aircraft carrier.
The Harrier, informally referred to as the Harrier jump jet, is a family of jet-powered attack aircraft capable of vertical/short takeoff and landing operations (V/STOL). Named after a bird of prey, it was originally developed by British manufacturer Hawker Siddeley in the 1960s. The Harrier emerged as the only truly successful V/STOL design of the many attempted during that era. It was conceived to operate from improvised bases, such as car parks or forest clearings, without requiring large and vulnerable air bases. Later, the design was adapted for use from aircraft carriers.
Giuseppe Garibaldi is an Italian aircraft carrier, the first through-deck aviation ship ever built for the Italian Navy, and the first Italian ship built to operate fixed-wing aircraft. Although she is widely recognised as a carrier first and foremost, she is officially designated as an aircraft-carrying cruiser. She is equipped with short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft and helicopters. Giuseppe Garibaldi was involved in combat air operations off Somalia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Libya.
The flight deck of an aircraft carrier is the surface from which its aircraft take off and land, essentially a miniature airfield at sea. On smaller naval ships which do not have aviation as a primary mission, the landing area for helicopters and other VTOL aircraft is also referred to as the flight deck. The official U.S. Navy term for these vessels is "air-capable ships".
HMS Ark Royal (R09) was an Audacious-class aircraft carrier of the Royal Navy and, when she was decommissioned in 1979, was the Royal Navy's last remaining conventional catapult and arrested-landing aircraft carrier. She was the first aircraft carrier to be equipped with an angled flight deck at its commissioning; her sister ship, HMS Eagle, was the Royal Navy's first angle-decked aircraft carrier after modification in 1954. Ark Royal was the only non-United States vessel to operate the McDonnell Douglas Phantom at sea.
The Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy consists of two vessels. The lead ship of her class, HMS Queen Elizabeth, was named on 4 July 2014 in honour of Elizabeth I and was commissioned on 7 December 2017. Her sister ship, HMS Prince of Wales, was launched on 21 December 2017, and was commissioned on 10 December 2019. They form the central components of the UK Carrier Strike Group.
STOBAR is a system used for the launch and recovery of aircraft from the deck of an aircraft carrier, combining elements of "short take-off and vertical landing" (STOVL) with "catapult-assisted take-off, barrier-arrested recovery" (CATOBAR).
The British Aerospace Sea Harrier is a naval short take-off and vertical landing/vertical take-off and landing jet fighter, reconnaissance and attack aircraft. It is the second member of the Harrier family developed. It first entered service with the Royal Navy in April 1980 as the Sea Harrier FRS1 and became informally known as the "Shar". Unusual in an era in which most naval and land-based air superiority fighters were large and supersonic, the principal role of the subsonic Sea Harrier was to provide air defence for Royal Navy task groups centred around the aircraft carriers.
Naval aviation is the application of military air power by navies, whether from warships that embark aircraft, or land bases.
An aircraft catapult is a device used to allow aircraft to take off in a limited distance, typically from the deck of a vessel. They can also be installed on land-based runways, although this is rarely done. They are usually used on aircraft carriers as a form of assisted take off.
An anti-submarine warfare carrier is a type of small aircraft carrier whose primary role is as the nucleus of an anti-submarine warfare hunter-killer group. This type of ship came into existence during the Cold War as a development of the escort carriers used in the ASW role in the North Atlantic during World War II.
Dédalo was the first Spanish aircraft carrier and the second aviation ship in the Spanish Navy. She remained the fleet's flagship until Príncipe de Asturias replaced her. Dédalo was formerly the World War II-era light aircraft carrier USS Cabot, which was acquired from the United States in the 1960s.
The Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) is a type of electromagnetic catapult system developed by General Atomics for the United States Navy. The system launches carrier-based aircraft by means of a catapult employing a linear induction motor rather than the conventional steam piston. EMALS was first installed on the lead ship of the Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford.
CATOBAR is a system used for the launch and recovery of aircraft from the deck of an aircraft carrier. Under this technique, aircraft launch using a catapult-assisted take-off and land on the ship using arrestor wires.
Aircraft carriers are warships that evolved from balloon-carrying wooden vessels into nuclear-powered vessels carrying many dozens of fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft. Since their introduction they have allowed naval forces to project air power great distances without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations.
Aircraft have different ways to take off and land. Conventional airplanes accelerate along the ground until reaching a speed that is sufficient for the airplane to takeoff and climb at a safe speed. Some airplanes can take off at low speed, this being a short takeoff. Some aircraft such as helicopters and Harrier jump jets can take off and land vertically. Rockets also usually take off vertically, but some designs can land horizontally.
Shipborne rolling vertical landing (SRVL) is a method used to land a V/STOL aircraft that uses both the vertical thrust from the jet engine and lift from the wings.
In aviation, a ski-jump is an upwardly curved ramp that allows a fixed-wing aircraft to take off from a runway that is shorter than the aircraft normally requires. By providing an upward vector from the ski-jump's normal force, the aircraft is launched at an elevated angle and lift-off can be achieved at a lower airspeed than that required for flat takeoff, as it allows the aircraft more time to continue accelerating while airborne after leaving the runway. Ski-jumps are commonly used to launch shipborne aircraft from aircraft carriers that lack catapults.
