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. 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. 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 fighter planes, strike aircraft, helicopters, and other types of aircraft. While it is possible to launch heavier aircraft such as fixed-wing gunships and bombers (it has been done) from aircraft carriers, it is virtually impossible to land them.

There is no single definition of an "aircraft carrier," and modern navies use several variants of the type. These variants are sometimes categorized as sub-types of aircraft carriers, and sometimes as distinct types of naval aviation-capable ships. Aircraft carriers may be classified according to the type of aircraft they carry and their operational assignments. Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, RN; former First Sea Lord (head) of the British Royal Navy, has said, "To put it simply, countries that aspire to strategic international influence have aircraft carriers".

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