AWESOME NIGHTLIFE on US Navy Aircraft carrier

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• published: 12 Dec 2015
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A great video of the awesome nightlife on a US Navy aircraft carrier. 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.[1] 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. Aircraft carriers are expensive to build and are critical assets. Aircraft carriers have evolved from converted cruisers to nuclear-powered warships that carry numerous fighter planes, strike aircraft, helicopters, and other types of aircraft. There is no single definition of an "aircraft carrier",[2] and modern navies use several variants of the type. These variants are sometimes categorized as sub-types of aircraft carriers,[3] and sometimes as distinct types of naval aviation-capable ships.[2][4] Aircraft carriers may be classified according to the type of aircraft they carry and their operational assignments. Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, former head of the Royal Navy, has said that "To put it simply, countries that aspire to strategic international influence have aircraft carriers".[5] Carriers have evolved since their inception in the early twentieth century from wooden vessels used to deploy balloons to nuclear-powered warships that carry dozens of aircraft, including fighter jets and helicopters. As of 25 July 2015, there are thirty-seven active aircraft carriers in the world within twelve navies. The United States Navy has ten large nuclear-powered carriers, known as supercarriers, carrying up to ninety aircraft each, the largest carriers in the world. As well as the supercarrier fleet, the US Navy has nine amphibious assault ships used primarily for helicopters (sometimes called helicopter carriers); these can also carry up to twenty-five fighter jets, and in some cases, are as large as some other nations' fixed-wing carriers. Types of carrier Basic types[edit] Amphibious assault ship Anti-submarine warfare carrier Balloon carrier and balloon tenders Escort carrier Fleet carrier Flight deck cruiser Helicopter carrier Light aircraft carrier Sea Control Ship Seaplane tender and seaplane carriers Supercarrier (note: some of the types listed here are not strictly defined as aircraft carriers by some sources) By role[edit] A fleet carrier is intended to operate with the main fleet and usually provides an offensive capability. These are the largest carriers capable of fast speeds. By comparison, escort carriers were developed to provide defense for convoys of ships. They were smaller and slower with lower numbers of aircraft carried. Most were built from mercantile hulls or, in the case of merchant aircraft carriers, were bulk cargo ships with a flight deck added on top. Light aircraft carriers were carriers that were fast enough to operate with the fleet but of smaller size with reduced aircraft capacity. Soviet aircraft carriers now in use by Russia are actually called heavy aviation cruisers, these ships while sized in the range of large fleet carriers were designed to deploy alone or with escorts and provide both strong defensive weaponry and heavy offensive missiles equivalent to a guided missile cruiser in addition to supporting fighters and helicopters. By configuration[edit] INS Vikramaditya of the Indian Navy has the STOBAR configuration. There are four main configurations of aircraft carrier in service in the world's navies, divided by the way that aircraft take off and land: Catapult-assisted take-off but arrested-recovery (CATOBAR): these carriers generally carry the largest, heaviest, and most heavily armed aircraft, although smaller CATOBAR carriers may have other limitations (weight capacity of aircraft elevator, etc.). Three nations currently operate carriers of this type: ten by the United States, and one each by France and Brazil for a total of twelve in service. Short take-off but arrested-recovery (STOBAR): these carriers are generally limited to carrying lighter fixed-wing aircraft with more limited payloads. STOBAR carrier air wings, such as the Sukhoi Su-33 and future Mikoyan MiG-29K wings of the Admiral Kuznetsov are often geared primarily towards air superiority and fleet defense roles rather than strike/power projection tasks,[citation needed] which require heavier payloads (bombs and air-to-ground missiles). Currently, Russia, China, and India possess commissioned carriers of this type. Short take-off vertical-landing (STOVL): limited to carrying STOVL aircraft. STOVL aircraft, such as the Harrier Jump Jet family and Yakovlev Yak-38 generally have very limited payloads, lower performance, and high fuel consumption when compared with conventional fixed-wing aircraft; however, a new generation of STOVL aircraft, currently consisting of the F-35B has much improved performance.