59 Fun Facts About Aircraft Carriers

Which type of warship did the aircraft carrier replace as a fleet's flagship after the Second World War?

The battleship. In December 1941 Japanese aircraft sank the Royal Navy's Prince of Wales and Repulse at sea: without air cover, big guns had no answer to bombers and torpedo planes.

Which US Secretary of State is widely credited with calling an aircraft carrier '100,000 tons of diplomacy'?

Henry Kissinger is widely credited with the line. The number is near literal: a fully loaded Nimitz-class carrier displaces roughly 100,000 tons.

What drives every aircraft carrier in the US Navy?

Nuclear reactors. Each ship can steam for over 20 years before refuelling, and federal law obliges the Navy to keep at least 11 carriers in service.

Which Japanese tactic, begun in late 1944, put several American carriers out of action off Okinawa?

Kamikaze attacks. British carriers had armoured flight decks, and a US liaison officer aboard one said a hit there meant only 'Sweepers, man your brooms'.

Swordfish torpedo bombers from which British carrier crippled the battleship Bismarck's rudder in May 1941?

HMS Ark Royal. Her biplanes first attacked the British cruiser Sheffield by mistake; a second strike jammed Bismarck's rudder, and the fleet caught and sank her the next morning.

Which US carrier, generally counted as the first supercarrier, was named for the first Secretary of Defense?

USS Forrestal. In 1967 a stray rocket set off bombs on her crowded deck off Vietnam, killing 134 men, and the Navy overhauled its firefighting training afterwards.

Project Habakkuk was a British wartime plan to build a giant aircraft carrier out of what?

Ice and wood pulp, a slow-melting frozen mix called pykrete. A test model was built on a lake in Alberta before longer-range patrol aircraft made the ship unnecessary.

Eugene Ely's 1911 landing on USS Pennsylvania, the first on any ship, introduced which device carrier aircraft still use?

A tailhook. Hooks under Ely's biplane snagged ropes stretched between sandbags on a wooden platform; two months earlier he had made the first take-off from a ship.

Which future US president was shot down in 1944 flying a torpedo bomber from the carrier USS San Jacinto?

George H. W. Bush. He bailed out over the Pacific and was picked up by the submarine USS Finback; a Nimitz-class carrier now carries his name.

Which carrier jet does Maverick fly in the 1986 film Top Gun?

F-14 Tomcat. The Navy loaned the production real Tomcats and days of filming aboard a working carrier at sea, while repainted American F-5s played the enemy MiGs.

The 1918 Tondern raid, the first strike flown from a carrier's deck, used seven aircraft of which type?

Sopwith Camel. Flying from HMS Furious, they destroyed Zeppelins L 54 and L 60 in their shed; three pilots, short of fuel for the trip back, landed in neutral Denmark, were interned and soon escaped home.

What stopped Edwin Dunning's aircraft in 1917 in the first landing on a moving ship?

Deck crew grabbing it: men sprinted out and dragged his biplane down by rope loops as he cut the engine over HMS Furious. Dunning was killed five days later attempting another landing.

Which 1918 ship became the first carrier with a full-length deck for both take-offs and landings?

HMS Argus. Converted from an unfinished Italian liner, she had nothing standing above her full-length deck, because air churned up by the funnel and bridge of HMS Furious had made landing there deadly.

Which 1922 agreement led navies to turn unfinished battleships and battlecruisers into aircraft carriers?

The Washington Naval Treaty. It capped battleship fleets but let each navy finish a few cancelled hulls as carriers, which is how the American battlecruisers Lexington and Saratoga went to sea with flight decks.

Which 1922 Japanese ship was among the first purpose-built aircraft carriers to be commissioned?

Hōshō. Britain laid down a rival first, but Japan finished sooner and commissioned her in December 1922; she survived the Second World War and ended her career ferrying Japanese troops home.

In November 1940, a British carrier launched a strike on the Italian fleet at which harbour?

Taranto. Twenty-one Swordfish biplanes flying from a single carrier put three Italian battleships out of action in one night, for the loss of just two aircraft.

Which Japanese admiral devised the six-carrier strike on Pearl Harbor?

Isoroku Yamamoto. His six carriers launched two waves of aircraft against the fleet at anchor, yet the American carriers happened to be away and escaped untouched.

The Doolittle Raid launched 16 B-25 bombers against Japan from which carrier?

USS Hornet. Asked where the bombers had come from, President Roosevelt told reporters 'Shangri-La', the hidden valley of a popular novel, and the Navy later gave that name to a new carrier.

Which British carrier was caught and sunk by the guns of Scharnhorst and Gneisenau off Norway in June 1940?

HMS Glorious. She had no aircraft in the air when the German ships sighted her, and she went down with her two escorting destroyers and more than 1,500 men.

How did a sortie usually end for the Hurricane fighter catapulted from a wartime CAM ship?

The pilot ditched or bailed out near the convoy and hoped a ship would pick him up. The rocket-launched fighters were a stopgap until enough escort carriers arrived.

USS Sable and USS Wolverine were unusual training carriers that operated on which waters?

The Great Lakes. Both were side-wheel steamers, former luxury lake cruise ships given flat decks, and thousands of navy pilots made their first carrier landings on them on Lake Michigan, far from any submarine.

Which carrier feature did British officer Dennis Cambell devise for landing jets?

Angled flight deck. Slanting the landing strip off to one side meant a jet that missed every wire could power away over open water and try again, and the US Navy quickly rebuilt USS Antietam to test it.

What do carrier pilots call the amber light that guides their landing approach?

The meatball. Pilots keep it lined up with a row of green lights all the way down; it grew out of a British mirror sight introduced in 1954, when faster jets left pilots too little time to correct an approach.

What does the acronym CATOBAR stand for?

Catapult Assisted Take-Off But Arrested Recovery. A catapult flings each aircraft off the deck and wires stop it on return, the costliest arrangement to build but the one that lets jets leave with full fuel and weapons.

STOBAR carriers launch their jets using what instead of catapults?

A ski-jump. The upward-curved bow ramp turns some of a jet's forward speed into climb, but aircraft launched this way cannot carry the fuel and weapons loads that a catapult allows.

A carrier jet that touches down but misses every arresting wire and must fly off again has made what?

A bolter. Pilots push the throttles to full power the instant they touch the deck, so that if nothing catches, the jet is already moving fast enough to fly off and try again.

What is the radio call sign of the landing signal officer?

Paddles. Landing signal officers once stood at the stern holding a brightly coloured paddle in each hand to guide pilots down; today they talk to pilots by radio, but the old nickname stuck.

Which officer, usually a commander, controls launch and recovery from Primary Flight Control?

The air boss. From a glass-walled tower high on the island he or she directs every aircraft on the flight deck and in the sky for five miles around the ship, helped by a deputy known as the mini boss.

How do US Navy flight-deck crews indicate their different responsibilities?

Coloured shirts. Yellow marks the directors who move aircraft, red the ordnance and crash crews and purple the fuel handlers, so anyone can read a crowded, deafening deck at a glance.

Which carrier served as the Royal Navy's flagship during the 1982 Falklands War?

HMS Hermes. Launched back in 1953, she sailed for the South Atlantic three days after the invasion to lead the task force, and four years after the war was sold to India for a second career.

Where did the Japanese carriers Akagi and Hiryū unusually carry their islands?

On the port side. Nearly every other carrier ever built puts the island to starboard; Japan tried the left to keep it clear of the funnel exhaust, and the experiment was never repeated.

Which British fighter, able to hover and land vertically, flew from Royal Navy carriers from 1980 to 2006?

The Sea Harrier. Only two years after entering service it was the sole fighter the British task force had for air defence in the 1982 Falklands War, and it stayed with the fleet until 2006.

China bought its first carrier unfinished, supposedly to become what?

Floating casino. A Macau company paid Ukraine $20 million for the hulk, called Varyag; instead of opening to gamblers she was towed to Dalian, rebuilt and commissioned in 2012 as the Liaoning.

What is the name of China's first catapult-equipped carrier, commissioned in November 2025?

Fujian. Named for the province facing Taiwan, she is China's third carrier and the first designed entirely at home, launched in Shanghai in 2022 and commissioned at Sanya with Xi Jinping looking on.

What is the name of France's only aircraft carrier, its navy's flagship since 2001?

Charles de Gaulle. She was first going to be called Richelieu, after the cardinal, before being renamed for the wartime general; commissioned in 2001, she has been the French Navy's flagship ever since.

India's INS Vikramaditya, delivered five years late and far over budget, was rebuilt from a warship bought from which country?

Russia. She was the laid-up Admiral Gorshkov; the 2004 deal promised delivery in 2008, but the refit at Severodvinsk dragged on until 2013 and the price more than doubled.

Moscow's accident-prone carrier Admiral Kuznetsov broke down so often that it rarely put to sea without what?

A naval tug. When she finally went to war in 2016, steaming past Britain to fly strikes over Syria, an ocean-going tug sailed with the task force in case her engines failed.

The Royal Navy's two Queen Elizabeth-class carriers operate which fighter?

F-35 Lightning II. Britain chose the B model, which takes off in a short run and lands vertically, so both ships were built without any catapults or arrestor wires.

The Gerald R. Ford class replaces steam catapults with which kind?

Electromagnetic catapults, known as EMALS. A linear induction motor takes the place of the steam piston, accelerating each aircraft more smoothly and so putting less stress on its airframe.

Which museum carrier is moored in New York City?

USS Intrepid. When a torpedo jammed her rudder in February 1944, her crew rigged a makeshift sail from canvas and hatch covers to help steer her back to Pearl Harbor.

Which country sank its own retired aircraft carrier in the Atlantic in 2023 after Turkey refused to scrap the hulk?

Brazil. The São Paulo, once the French carrier Foch, was sold for scrap, but Turkey barred her over the asbestos aboard; after months under tow the navy sank her some 350 km offshore.

In 2005 war games, a small diesel submarine on loan from which country 'sank' the carrier USS Ronald Reagan?

Sweden. HSwMS Gotland, whose Stirling engines let her stay submerged and almost silent, slipped past the escorts to score simulated hits, and the US Navy kept boat and crew on loan for two years.

Akron and Macon, the US Navy's 1930s 'flying aircraft carriers' that launched and recovered fighters in mid-air, were what?

Airships. Each helium-filled giant carried up to five Sparrowhawk biplanes, lowered on a trapeze to launch and caught on it again to come home; Akron went down in a storm off New Jersey in 1933.

During a 1929 drought, what did the carrier USS Lexington supply to the city of Tacoma for a month?

Electricity. The drought had starved the hydroelectric dams Tacoma relied on, so cables were run ashore and the ship's turbo-electric machinery fed the city grid for about a month over Christmas.

India's first home-built carrier, commissioned in September 2022, carries what name?

INS Vikrant. She revives the name of India's first carrier, which fought in the 1971 war; Narendra Modi commissioned the new ship at Cochin Shipyard, the yard that built her.

In 1942 the American carrier USS Wasp ferried RAF Spitfires to which besieged Mediterranean island?

Malta. In April she flew off 47 Spitfires for the island's hard-pressed defenders; Axis raids wrecked most of them on the ground within days, so Wasp went back in May with more.

The 'wind over the deck' matters because it does what for aircraft?

Boosts lift at launch. A carrier turns into the wind and works up speed so that air is already streaming over the wings before a plane moves, which lowers the speed it must reach to fly.

USS Langley, which became the US Navy's first aircraft carrier in 1922, had been converted from what?

A coal ship. She began as the collier USS Jupiter, and the flight deck built over her old holds earned her the nickname 'Covered Wagon'; she was lost ferrying fighters to Java in 1942.

In 1963 trials, which transport became the largest and heaviest aircraft ever to land on an aircraft carrier?

C-130 Hercules. Using no arresting wires and no catapult, a four-engined Marine Corps tanker made 21 full-stop landings and 21 take-offs at sea off Massachusetts, a record that still stands.

Which June 1942 battle cost Japan four of the six carriers that had struck Pearl Harbor?

Midway. American dive bombers set Akagi, Kaga and Sōryū ablaze in a single morning attack on 4 June, and Hiryū, the last of the four, was wrecked that afternoon.

Which May 1942 battle was the first in which the opposing fleets never sighted each other, fighting only with carrier aircraft?

Coral Sea. The US lost the carrier Lexington, but the Japanese invasion force bound for Port Moresby turned back, the first time in the war that a major Japanese advance had been stopped.

What sank the Japanese carrier Shinano only ten days after she was commissioned in 1944?

A submarine. USS Archerfish hit her with four torpedoes as she sailed to another yard to finish fitting out; begun as a sister ship of the giant Yamato, she is the largest warship a submarine has ever sunk.

Which was the only Yorktown-class carrier to survive World War II, earning a record 20 battle stars?

USS Enterprise. Both her sisters were lost in 1942, and although her veterans campaigned to keep her as a memorial, the Navy sold her for scrap in 1958.

Which Essex-class carrier was set ablaze by a lone bomber's two bombs off Japan in March 1945 yet made it home?

USS Franklin. Known as 'Big Ben', she was the most heavily damaged American carrier to survive the war, and her chaplain, Joseph O'Callahan, earned the Medal of Honor for leading firefighting crews across the burning deck.

What nickname did the Royal Navy give to small escort flat-tops built on merchant hulls?

Woolworth carriers was the Royal Navy's name for them, and their own crews trusted them so little that the hull code CVE was said to stand for combustible, vulnerable and expendable.

Several Essex-class carriers served in the 1960s as prime recovery ships for whom?

NASA astronauts: Essex-class ships plucked Mercury, Gemini and Apollo crews from the sea, and the Apollo 11 crew stepped aboard one straight into a quarantine trailer, where President Nixon greeted them through a window.

What nearly swept future president Gerald Ford off the light carrier USS Monterey in 1944?

A typhoon rolled Monterey so hard that Ford slid toward the edge of the flight deck and nearly went overboard, and the same storm sent him below to report on a hangar fire started by planes breaking loose.

Italy's new aircraft carrier Cavour made its first operational mission in 2010 a relief voyage to which earthquake-hit country?

Haiti: instead of jets, Cavour sailed with a field hospital, cranes, bulldozers and six medical-evacuation helicopters on board.

Which US president formally commissioned the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford at Norfolk?

Donald Trump arrived on the flight deck by helicopter and placed the ship in commission on 22 July 2017, before Ford's daughter Susan gave the order to man the ship and bring her to life.