World’s Biggest Aircraft Carriers
Following on from January’s World’s biggest passenger ships post, today we’re going to be looking at the largest aircraft carriers on the water. These warships act as mobile airbases, allowing aircraft to be launched as close to the theatre of war as possible.
Starting with the largest, the undisputed Queen of the seas is the USS Enterprise, which takes the title of being the largest naval vessel on Earth (or water!), with a massive length of 342.3 metres.
Enterprise is moored up alongside the almost-as-large USS Harry Truman and Roosevelt. Like the other seven of the Nimitz class carriers, these are 333m long. Roosevelt, nicknamed ‘Rough Rider’, was responsible for nearly 5000 tonnes of bombs dropped during the first Gulf War.
The Naval Station at Norfolk, Virginia, where these three ships reside when not on active duty, is actually the largest naval base in the World, with 75 ships calling it home - as well as having, incidentally, a huge amount of car-parking spaces!
The USS George HW Bush is the last in Nimitz class, before the new Ford class carriers start being built, and is named for former President Bush. Costing a whopping $4.5 billion, this 333m carrier is on track to be delivered this year. She is seen here in construction at the Northrop Grumman shipyard, also in Norfolk.
(You can see a Microsoft Live Maps birds eye view of it in construction here, but sadly it still isn’t compatible with Safari!)
Back in 1957, the largest naval vessel ever built was the Forrestal Class USS Ranger, which measures 319m and is capable of carrying up to 90 aircraft aboard.
Ranger is seen here with Forrestal class USS Independence and the Kitty Hawk class USS Constellation, which have all been decommissioned to the Naval Air Station in Bremerton, WA.
Now taking the role of the Sea, Air and Space museum in New York City, the USS Intrepid saw service from World War 2 right through to 1974, including in the Vietnam war, where planes would often be launched from her in intervals as small as every 26 seconds!
In late 2006 Intrepid was dragged out of the Hudson river’s mud (with considerable effort) and transferred to Staten Island for repair work. She is expected to be back on display in September.
The most noticeable of Intrepid’s aircraft is the Lockheed A-12, the precursor to the SR-71 Blackbird which is famed for flying from New York to London in 1 hour 54 minutes! You might recognise the plane from ‘I am Legend’, where Will Smith’s character spends time hitting golf balls from her wing.
She may be just a wee tiddler at 214m (this photo shows a comparison between a Nimitz class ship and the HMS Illustrious), but it would be wrong to not include at least one British vessel! HMS Invincible was decommissioned in 2005, and is seen here at Portsmouth Harbour. She’s definitely going nowhere - you can see her propellers lying on the deck!
She was superseded by HMS Illustrious - found in dry-dock in Rosyth having a refit, which was completed last year. In 2014, the first of the new Queen Elizabeth class carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth is due to enter service, at a much more substantial 274m in length. HMS Prince of Wales will join her in 2016.
Previosuly on Google Sightseeing: Carrier Landing Practice Runway and Landlocked.
Thanks: Andrew, Kevin, tsw and many, many others! 
do the british not understand that naming a ship the Prince of Wales may not be a good idea? many of them seem to last longer than a decade
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Prince_of_Wales
Just out of curiosity, how can you tell those are the Roosevelt and the Truman? I would assume the Enterprise is detectable because of the extra length, but the other two? I can’t imagine we would put all of Nimitiz class carriers at dock in the same place at the same time.
The numbers on the flight deck are unique to each carrier vessel. For example CV 10 is the USS Yorktown, CVN 77 is USS G.W. Bush. etc etc
Interestingly enough, last week I compiled a list of the locations of all the possible google earth and Live Maps sightings of US Carriers that are still in one piece (with the exception of the Oriskany which is now at the bottom of the gulf, but at the time of the imagery still afloat) see list below, I apologize for the formatting. I have it in excel and it looks nice, but when I copied and pasted it here it went all screwy. I would include direct links to each location, but I haven’t had time. As big as they are if you go to the location you should easily find them.
US Carriers that can be seen in GOOGLE and Live Maps (2/28/08)
Number Name Class Status Location GE Location LM
CV 10 Yorktown Essex Museum Patriots Point, Charleston, SCLM-same
CV 11 Intrepid Essex Museum New York, NY North River PiersLM-same
CV 12 Hornet Essex Museum Alameda NAS, CALM-same
CV 16 Lexington Essex Museum Corpas Christi, TX @ north beachLM-same
CV 34 Oriskany Essex Sunk for reef Corpas Christi, TX near ViolaLM-Beaumont, TX
CVB 41 Midway Midway Museum Not FoundLM-San Diego, CA US Naval Reservation
CV 59 Forrestal Forrestal US Naval Station, Middletown, RILM-same
CV 60 Saratoga Forrestal US Naval Station, Middletown, RILM-same
CV 61 Ranger Forrestal Puget Sound Naval ShipyardLM-same
CV 62 Independence Forrestal Puget Sound Naval ShipyardLM-same
CV 63 Kitty Hawk Kitty Hawk Active Yokosuka, JapanLM-not enough resolution
CV 64 Constellation Kitty Hawk Puget Sound Naval ShipyardLM-same
CV 65 Enterprise Enterprise Active Norfolk Naval BaseLM-same
CV 67 John F Kennedy Kennedy Mayport Naval Station, FLLM-same
CVN 68 Nimitz Nimitz Active San Diego North Island NASLM-same
CVN 69 D. D. Eisenhower Nimitz Active Not FoundLM-Norfolk Naval Base
CVN 70 Carl Vinson Nimitz Active New Port News dry dockLM-New Port News dry dock, NPN Pier - birds eye
CVN 71 Theodore Roosevelt Nimitz Active Norfolk Naval BaseLM-Norfolk Naval Shipyard
CVN 72 Abraham Lincoln Nimitz Active US Naval Station, Everett WALM-US Naval Station, Everett WA - birds eye only
CVN 73 George Washington Nimitz Active Norfolk Naval Shipyard dry dockLM-Norfolk Naval Base Pier - dry dock birds eye south
CVN 74 John Stennis Nimitz Active Not FoundLM-Puget Sound Naval Shipyard - Birds eye only
CVN 75 Harry Truman Nimitz Active Norfolk Naval BaseLM-same
CVN 76 Ronald Reagan Nimitz Active Not FoundLM-San Diego North Island NAS
CVN 77 George W Bush Nimitz Construction New Port NewsLM-same
The USS George HW Bush is being built not in Norfolk, but in Newport News, different city that side of the river.
Is that another carrier being built right next to George HW Bush in dry dock?
How many aircraft carriers does one country need?
The decommissioned carriers are located in Bremerton, Washington. Not San Diego.
However, there is a carrier at North Island San Diego.
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
I put the wrong link.
Placemark: View Larger Map / Google Earth
Cheers, turtle - my mistake! Edited.
Next to the George HW Bush you can see the Gerald R Ford (CVN 21), the first of the Ford Class carriers in construction to be deployed around 2015.
It will be the 1st of a new generation of Carriers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_R._Ford_class_aircraft_carrier
Note: I believe it was during Ronald Reagan presidency that US Navy set the strategy to always have 13 Aircraft Carriers on active duty.
I’m no military genius but to me it seems daft to have such a huge aircraft carriers which, God forbid, should ever suffer a fatal attack would leave a big hole in the USA’s military resources. Surely wouldnt it be more practical to have more, smaller carriers that arent such big targets and perhaps wouldnt be missed as much a these huge ones if one was to be lost
Perhaps i should write to G W Bush telling him of my idea.
@vanbarel and cookie monster
This carrier in dry dock is not G. R. Ford. Construction on CVN 78/ G.R. Ford began in early 2007. See Article Here - http://hamptonroads.com/node/241601
The ship in dry dock is too far along to be Ford.
The dry dock ship is actually CVN 70/ Carl Vinson. The ship is undergoing a Refueling Complex Overhaul (RCOH) See Articles Here - http://www.navysite.de/cvn/cvn70hist.htm
and
http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/70.htm
and very cool video of the flooding of the dry dock in mid 2007 http://www.news.navy.mil/management/videodb/player/video.aspx?id=9538
You can barely see the numbers on the ship in Live Maps
Here is the “7″
http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=q4yr928mwm2f&style=o&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=23597427&encType=1
and here is the “0″
http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=q4yr018mwjq0&style=o&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=23597426&encType=1
My previous comment seems to have been eaten, so here goes again. I had been clarifying some of the information on nova72’s list of US Navy carriers.
Midway’s (CV 41) berth in San Diego as a museum ship is currently not visable in Google’s data set, but Yahoo Maps has her, as does Virtual Earth.
And USS Oriskany was not sunk off Corpus Christi, TX, but instead off Pensacola, FL in May 2006. Her location as an artificial reef and dive spot in the Gulf of Mexico is Placemark: here / Google Earth. She is, however, still afloat in Placemark: Google’ data set / Google Earth.
@Force of Freedom
Thanks for the clarification on those.
unfortunately there are supposed to be columns and everything should line up, but due the small comment window here i had to try to squeeze things close, did make things a little confusing.
On the list for USS Midway I put “not found” under what is supposed to be the G.E. column.
And for Oriskany, it can be seen in G.E. at Corpus Christi as noted in the link in the above comment, TX and seen in Beaumont in Live Maps.
Here’s a few more carriers:
The Russian-built, now in Chinese possession ex-Varyag:
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
The sister ship, still operational in Russia, is here:
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
The French Charles de Gaulle:
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
The Brazilian (ex-French) Sao Paulo:
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
Italian Giuseppe Garibaldi:
Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth
I believe the US navy requires 12 carriers on a three per one deployed rotation, but only 11 carrier air groups, as one of the carriers will be in a long nuclear refueling process for quite some time.
In a crisis the UN navy likes to have two carriers available to provide around the clock air capability. The carriers weakness is having only one flight deck crew. They won’t last long without sleeping.
The US navy used to deploy two carriers to the Westpac and two carriers to the Med. Sea. But when we face a crisis in the Persian Gulf, one carrier of each is sent to the Arabian Sea. While one can say the US has too many carriers with 12, in fact, there is barely enough for a peacetime rotation. Carriers and their escorts usually deploy for 6 months at a time.
I”ve read a lot of the comments above, but how many of you guys have actually been ‘Bird Farm’ sailors. I, for one, served on several. e.g.
U.S.S. Constellation CV-64, Mid-Pac ‘62, Far East Cruise ‘63
U.S.S. Forrestal, CV-59, Med. Cruises in ‘65 & ‘66
U.S.S. John F. Kennedy, CV-67, Med. Cruises in ‘69, ‘70, ‘71, & ‘72* (*a 6 month cruise that lasted 10 1/2 months due to our relief ship(s), the U.S.S. Independence, & Saratoga being sent to Vietnam, and the U.S.S Forrestal’s Admiral’s Lounge & C.I.C being set on fire by some disgruntled sailor who was afraid of being sent to Vietnam next!!
U.S.S. Midway, CV-41, Forward Deployed to Yokosuka, Japan, ‘76-’78
U.S.S. Independence, CV-62, Med. Cruise ‘79 & RET-CONUS Cruise ‘86 as part of the pre-SLEP team working for Q.E.D. Systems, Va. Beach, VA
An Intelligence Officer on the U.S.S. J.F.K. once told me that in the event of WW-III, the life expectancy of a Forrestal Class Carrier was approximately 45 min. Just time enough to get the fighters off to keep the airways open so the bombers could clear the deck. And if ONE of those bombers got to their PRIMARY, SECONDARY, or THIRD priority target [with it's NECULAR weapon(s)], it was considered WORTH IT!! Now one of you guys try doing 20 yrs. with that in mind!! It damn sure wasn’t for the pay, I can tell you that.
Richard A. Moors, AQ1, U.S. Navy (Retired)
P.S. Newport News Shipyard is just across the river from the Norfolk Naval Shipyard, and can be seen from downtown Norfolk and downtown Portsmouth, VA. They built most of the Nimitz Class carriers that were built in the ’80’s.