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 Northrop Grumman E-2 Hawkeye is an American all-weather, carrier-capable tactical airborne early warning (AEW) aircraft. This twin-turboprop aircraft was designed and developed during the late 1950s and early 1960s by the Grumman Aircraft Company for the United States Navy as a replacement for the earlier, piston-engined E-1 Tracer, which was rapidly becoming obsolete. The aircraft's performance has been upgraded with the E-2B and E-2C versions, where most of the changes were made to the radar and radio communications due to advances in electronic integrated circuits and other electronics. The fourth major version of the Hawkeye is the E-2D, which first flew in 2007. The E-2 was the first aircraft designed specifically for AEW, as opposed to a modification of an existing airframe, such as the Boeing E-3 Sentry. Variants of the Hawkeye have been in continuous production since 1960, giving it the longest production run of any carrier-based aircraft.
USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN-69) is a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier currently in service with the United States Navy. Commissioned in 1977, the ship is the second of ten Nimitz-class aircraft carriers currently in service, and is the first ship named after the 34th President of the United States and General of the Army, Dwight D. Eisenhower. The vessel was initially named simply as USS Eisenhower, much like the lead ship of the class, Nimitz, but the name was changed to its present form on 25 May 1970. The carrier, like all others of her class, was constructed at Newport News Shipbuilding Company in Virginia, with the same design as the lead ship, although the ship has been overhauled twice to bring her up to the standards of those constructed more recently.
The Grumman C-2 Greyhound is a twin-engine, high-wing cargo aircraft designed to carry supplies, mail, and passengers to and from aircraft carriers of the United States Navy. Its primary mission is carrier onboard delivery (COD). The aircraft provides critical logistics support to carrier strike groups. The aircraft is mainly used to transport high-priority cargo such as jet engines and special stores, mail, and passengers between carriers and shore bases.
USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) is the fourth Nimitz-class, nuclear-powered, aircraft carrier in the United States Navy. She is named in honor of Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States and a proponent of naval power. She is the fourth ship named in honor of Theodore Roosevelt, three bearing his full name and a fourth with just his last name. Another three U.S. Navy ships have "Roosevelt" in their names in honor of members of the Roosevelt family. This carrier's radio call sign is "Rough Rider", the nickname of President Roosevelt's volunteer cavalry unit during the Spanish–American War. She was launched in 1984, and saw her first action during the Gulf War in 1991.
USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) is the eighth Nimitz-class aircraft carrier of the United States Navy, named after the 33rd President of the United States, Harry S. Truman. She is homeported at Naval Station Norfolk, Virginia.
The French Navy, informally La Royale, is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the four military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in the world recognised as being a blue-water navy. The French Navy is capable of operating globally and conducting expeditionary missions, maintaining a significant overseas presence. The French Navy is one of eight naval forces currently operating fixed-wing aircraft carriers, with its flagship Charles de Gaulle being the only nuclear-powered aircraft carrier outside the United States Navy, and one of two non-American vessels to use catapults to launch aircraft.
The fifth USS Independence (CV/CVA-62) was an aircraft carrier of the United States Navy. She was the fourth and final member of the Forrestal class of conventionally powered supercarriers. She entered service in 1959, with much of her early years spent in the Mediterranean Fleet.
Cavour is an Italian aircraft carrier launched in 2004. She is the flagship of the Italian Navy.
Charles de Gaulle is the flagship of the French Navy. The ship, commissioned in 2001, is the tenth French aircraft carrier, the first French nuclear-powered surface vessel, and the only nuclear-powered carrier completed outside of the United States Navy. She is named after French president and general Charles de Gaulle.
Foch was the second Clemenceau-class aircraft carrier that served with the French Navy from 1963 to 2000. The carrier was the second warship named in honour of the Marshal of France, British Field Marshal and Marshal of Poland Ferdinand Foch.
USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) is an aircraft carrier for the United States Navy and the lead ship of her class. The ship is named after the 38th President of the United States, Gerald Ford, whose World War II naval service included combat duty aboard the light aircraft carrier Monterey in the Pacific Theater.
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.
Since the 1970s, China's People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) has had ambitions to develop and operate aircraft carriers, and since 1985 has acquired four retired aircraft carriers for study; namely, the British-built Australian HMAS Melbourne and the ex-Soviet carriers Minsk, Kiev and Varyag. The Varyag later underwent an extensive refit to be converted into the Liaoning, China's first operational aircraft carrier, which also served as a basis for China's subsequent design iterations.
Liaoning is a Chinese Type 001 aircraft carrier. The first aircraft carrier commissioned into the People's Liberation Army Navy Surface Force, she was originally classified as a training ship, intended to allow the Navy to experiment, train and gain familiarity with aircraft carrier operations. Following upgrades and additional training in late 2018, Chinese state media announced that the ship would shift to a combat role in 2019.
INS Vikrant is an aircraft carrier in service with Indian Navy. The carrier is India's fourth carrier and the first to be built in India. It was constructed by the Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) in Kochi, Kerala. The namesake Vikrant is a tribute to India's first aircraft carrier INS Vikrant (1961). Vikrant means "courageous" in Sanskrit. The motto of the ship, "जयेम सम् युधिस्पृधः" (Sanskrit), means "I defeat those who dare to challenge me" (English).
