What is the average length of an aircraft carrier

China has two aircraft carriers on deck. The first, the Liaoning , entered service in In , a Chinese business man purchased the carrier from the Ukrainian government and announced he was going the ship into a floating casino. Finally, after significant renovation, the Liaoning commissioned.

So far, the vessel has struggled in the fight against marauding jellyfish. After nearly two years of sea trials, the vessel entered active service.

It's been a busy year for the Shandong , which boasts almost 50, tons of displacement and is powered by a conventional propulsion system. Both the Liaoning and the Shandong have a key special feature: a ski-jump takeoff ramp designed to help fighter jets safely launch.

A third carrier, completely different in design from the PLAN's first two carriers, is currently under development. A rumored fourth carrier , this time powered by nuclear propulsion, may also be in the works. Both of these carriers are reportedly much larger than China's first two and will be equipped with an electromagnetic catapult designed to fling fighter jets into the air.

None of these vessels, it seems, will be able to fly. Russia has one aircraft carrier on active duty: the Admiral Kuznetsov. The carrier was built in what is now Ukraine, and after an extensive construction period complicated by the breakup of the Soviet Union, the ship was put into Russian service in Technically speaking, Kuznetsov is a sister ship of the Chinese carrier Liaoning. Just over 1, feet long, Kuznetsov displaces 65, tons fully loaded. Unlike other aircraft carriers, Kutznetsov also packs a punch in the form of 12 SS-N Shipwreck supersonic anti-ship missiles and carries a naval version of the Tor surface-to-air missile for self-defense.

Admiral Kuznetsov isn't particularly mechanically reliable, having broken down at sea in Like most large Russian Navy ships, the carrier is accompanied by an oceangoing tug whenever it conducts an overseas cruise. You know, just in case. Admiral Kuznetsov has also had its fair share of bad luck lately. The aircraft carrier survived a number of crashes including a shipyard accident in and a fire, which broke out last year.

Russia is planning to add to its fleet of one. The Russian Navy is reportedly surveying two possible designs to replace the Kuznetsov. The U. There's the Queen Elizabeth , due to become operational in , and Prince of Wales , due in They will be the largest ships ever built for the Royal Navy.

Once completed, the carriers will be feet long and displace 65, tons apiece. Conventionally powered, they will operate both gas turbine and diesel engines. A high level of automation will keep the number of sailors manning each ship to just , with that number increasing to 1, with the air wing embedded.

Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales will feature a ski jump to assist jet takeoff instead of catapults. Each carrier will carry approximately 12 F Joint Strike Fighters and 4 helicopters on peacetime cruises, with the capability to surge to 36 Fs in wartime. Alternately, the ships can operate a mix of Apache, Merlin , Chinook, and Wildcat helicopters to land and support a Royal Marine landing force.

France has one working aircraft carrier, Charles de Gaulle. Commissioned in , it measures feet long and displaces 43, tons fully loaded. De Gaulle is the only nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the world that's not part of the U. It has practically unlimited range. The carrier typically supports an air wing consisting of 10 to 14 Rafale M multi-role fighters , 10 to 12 Super Etendard attack jets , two or three E-2C Hawkeye airborne early warning and control aircraft, and four to five search-and-rescue and transport helicopters.

It's one of the few non-American carriers to have steam catapults to assist in takeoffs and arrestor wires to aid landings. France is currently developing a 70,ton aircraft carrier , dubbed PANG, which it plans to unveil in The first of India's two carriers, Viraat , is an ex-British light aircraft carrier that was until recently the flagship of the Indian Navy. Built during World War II, she is the oldest serving aircraft carrier in the world.

The catapult system is used for taking off, while the Fresnel lens and arresting wires are used to help the pilot land. These systems have been in place for several decades, and even though technology will improve drastically within the next 20 years, the future systems will continue to be based on these initial designs.

Wagner, Jr. The Navy currently uses Nimitz class aircraft carriers, which are typically 1, feet in length and have deck space of approximately 4. Below deck the ships hold up to 80 aircraft, 6, people, 2 nuclear reactors, and all the supplies needed for tours that can last several months [1], [2].

In order for the aircraft carrier to act as a true traveling airport, the pilots and crew rely on three key elements to launch and land aircraft safely. First, four catapults are specially developed to launch planes at high speeds. Third, four arresting cables are in place to bring the plane to rest in less than feet [3]. Aircraft typically require long runways in order to gather enough speed so they can successfully take off.

Since the runway length on an aircraft carrier is only about feet [3], compared to the 2, feet needed for normal aircraft to take off from a runway [4], engineers have created steam-powered catapults on the decks of carriers that are capable of launching aircrafts from 0 to knots miles per hour in just 2 seconds [5]. The takeoff system can be broken down into two components — the above ground and below ground operations.

Figure 2: Blast Deflectors push harmful jet discharge into the air and away from the crew. The tow bar hangs off the front of the nose gear so the catapult can pull the aircraft [2]. In order to prevent harmful jet discharge from going into unwanted places, a jet-blast deflector is placed directly behind the aircraft, pushing the discharge up into the air see Fig. The pilot then pushes the engine to full throttle, creating a forward thrust that would traditionally move a jet forward [5].

A holdback bar is in place to prevent any motion at this time, despite the thrust of the jet. Once the force from the catapult is added to the thrust of the jet, the excess force will cause the hold-back bar to release and the jet will move [2]. This is because the hold-back bar can only hold the force from the jet at full thrust, but not the additional force of the catapult.

Below Ground Below deck, steam is pumped into a capsule at extremely high pressures. Once a valve is released, steam travels up a long tube that runs the length of the catapult.

The pressure from the steam travels to several pistons, which are locked in place until the signal for their release is given. The pistons are attached to the catapult above by a pulley system located in a crack running the length of the runway [6].

Once the aircraft is at full throttle and the steam is creating pressure below deck, the pistons are released and pushed forward at high speeds.

The force causes the holdback device, which is designed only to hold the force from the thrust of the jet, to release and shoot the jet from the ship into the air. After completing its task, the catapult must be stopped quickly. A water brake system is attached to the end of the launch tube.

When the pistons hit the water brake, pressure from the water in the tube forces the pistons to quickly come to a halt [7]. The pulley system then rapidly retracts the catapult so that the next aircraft can be hooked up for launch. When it's time for a plane to land, the pilot breaks free of this landing pattern and heads toward the stern of the ship.

Landing Signals Officers LSOs help guide the plane in, through radio communication as well as a collection of lights on the deck. If the plane is off course, the LSOs can use radio commands or illuminate other lights to correct him or her or "wave him off" send him around for another attempt. The lens consists of a series of lights and Fresnel lenses mounted to a gyroscopically stabilized platform.

The lenses focus the light into narrow beams that are directed into the sky at various angles. The pilot will see different lights depending on the plane's angle of approach. If the plane is right on target, the pilot will see an amber light, dubbed the " meatball ," in line with a row of green lights. If the amber light appears above the green lights, the plane is coming in too high; if the amber light appears below the green lights, the plane is coming in too low.

If the plane is coming in way too low, the pilot will see red lights. As soon as the plane hits the deck, the pilot will push the engines to full power, instead of slowing down, to bring the plane to a stop. This may seem counterintuitive, but if the tailhook doesn't catch any of the arresting wires, the plane needs to be moving fast enough to take off again and come around for another pass.

The landing runway is tilted at a degree angle to the rest of the ship, so bolters like this can take off from the side of the ship instead of plowing into the planes on the other end of the deck. As soon as an aircraft lands, it's pulled out of the landing strip and chained down on the side of the flight deck. Inactive aircraft are always tightly secured to keep them from sliding around as the deck rocks back and forth. The flight-deck crew has to be prepared for a wide range of unexpected events, including raging aircraft fires.

During takeoff or recovery operations, they have plenty of safety equipment at the ready. Among other things, the flight deck has a small fire truck , and nozzles leading to water tanks and aqueous film-forming foam , an advanced fire-extinguishing material there are also nozzles for jet fuel and a number of other useful liquids.

Flight-deck personnel also face the risk of a jet engine blowing them overboard.