Ville de Bordeaux is a carrier vessel that has been specially designed to transport various pieces of the Airbus A380 around the globe.

Given that the A380 is the largest passenger airliner in the world, it’s no surprise that the ship which carries it has its own world record (although it’s not as exciting) – Ville de Bordeaux has the largest ever watertight stern door on a ro-ro¹ vessel!

Collecting pieces from manufacturing sites in Germany, Spain and Wales, Ville de Bordeaux can be seen here docked at Bordeaux’s Pauillac terminal, where she drops off the various plane parts. Look closely and you’ll see the cargo door is open, and an aircraft fuselage has been rolled across the pontoon and transferred onto a barge.

This is actually one of two specially built semi-submersible barges which collect the cargo before heading south down the river to Langon, where the aircraft is unloaded for road-transport to Toulouse for final assembly (where, as previously posted, you can see the finished product).

You can follow the full story of A380 transport on the Google Earth Community. There’s also ground level pictures of Ville de Bordeaux on Flickr or see where she is right now with Vessel Tracker.

Thanks to Rene73.

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!

This aircraft carrier in China is going to have a hard time achieving much while locked in a small lake some 30 miles from the sea.

That’s because it’s a ¾ scale model of the U.S. Nimitz Class Aircraft carrier, and is part of the “military education centre” of Orient Green Boat after-school camp for youngsters. Don’t ask me what youngsters at an after-school camp actually do with an aircraft carrier.

As an added bonus the 380 hectare park is purportedly the “largest sculpture park in the world” (More info from Global Security).

Also going nowhere is the $7 million North Avenue Beach House in Chicago. The ship-shaped building was originally built around the time of the Great Depression and then received a full makeover back in 2000.

Previous Landlocked ships we’ve featured: The Whampoa, Durban Seaworld and Shekou Sea World.

Thanks: TuneS, Trident2d5, Dave & Me

A long time ago, way back when this website began, I thought that spotting submarines on satellite photographs would be very unlikely, what with them travelling underwater most of the time.

As it turned out there are a lot of submarines sitting about on land, but it has taken a while for someone to find a travelling submarine. This Ming class diesel submarine is on its way back to Lushun Naval Base where there’s a few more docked up.

Thanks to Bill Preston.

Ship Breaking is primariliry carried out in developing nations such as India and Bangladesh – as their laws on dealing with lead paint, asbestos and general worker’s conditions fall far short of Europe and the US.

Chittagong Ship Breaking Yard in Bangladesh is mostly in low-res, but we can see a couple of ships here which have been beached on the mud flats for dismantling. All the steel from the ships is recycled and I think these are lifeboats.

The workers here are mostly barefoot, have no safety gear and scrap the ships by hand. Greenpeace estimates that due to the potential for structural collapse on the ships, and the hazardous chemicals abound, one worker a day is likely to die. Edward Burtynsky’s photos show just how perilous it is.

There’s even more to see Alang, India, where workers can expect similarly awful conditions. Of note here’s a huge end piece of ship and an aircraft carrier waiting out at sea.

Further reading on Wikipedia and Shoback

Thanks: Nathan, John Kranick, dr_cy_coe, Glenn, Ken Przywara, russ