Photos Aircraft Carriers

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A port side view showing US Navy (USN) Sailors manning the rails of the USS CONSTELLATION (CV 64), as the ship is assisted by tugboats, while entering the harbor at Sydney Australia, during Operation SOUTHERN WATCH, April 5, 2001.

 

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HMS Invincible (R05) is escorted by local tugboats while arriving in Jacksonville, Fla. on May 21, 2004.

U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate 2nd Class Charles E. Hill

 

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USS Enterprise (CVN-65) at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in February 1971.

The Big E had just finished an overhaul at Newport News and was returning to her home port of Alameda in preparation for what would be her final Vietnam tour.

She made only 2 stops in her journey around the Americas; The Equator and Rio!

 

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HMS Illustrious (R06)

 

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RN
QE R08 in the Suez Canal

 

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USS Saratoga (CVA-60) with CVW-3 embarked. Photo taken during her deployment to the Mediterranean in 1965. She is nine years into a 38-year career with the USN.

 

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PORTSMOUTH DOCKYARD 1968

The unfinished Majestic class light fleet carrier "Leviathan" lies alongside Berth 8 in Number 3 Basin. Her boilers had been sold to the shipyard refitting the Argentinian aircraft carrier Vienticinco de Mayo (V-2). She would be scrapped in May 1968.

The decommissioned HMS Centaur (R06) alongside the North West Wall, was acting as an accommodation ship. The catapults seem to have been removed.

HMS Victorious (R38) which is alongside Middle Slip Jetty was decommissioned on March 13, 1968.

In the foreground is the County class destroyer, HMS Fife (D20)
A Rothesay class frigate is alongside the South West Wall.
Another County class destroyer in Loch C with another in the distance.

Notice the hulk of the 19th-century sailing frigate HMS Foudroyant. Used as a training ship, she was restored as HMS Trincomalee and is now a museum ship in Hartlepool.

 

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USS Midway (CV-41) in Subic Bay, 1982

 

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USS Intrepid (CVA-11), USS Saratoga (CVA-60), and USS Independence (CVA-62) Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of Naval Aviation.

 

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India
INS Vikramadytia

 

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USS Enterprise
May 28, 1966 - Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 9 aircraft pictured on the flight deck of the carrier Enterprise (CVA(N) 65) operating off Vietnam

 

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A rarity it seems

 

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USS Forrestal (CV-59) in 1987. In this time she was operating with the 2nd Fleet in the North Atlantic.

Three F-14 Tomcats are lined up on the catapults with another 3 ready to come after. An EA-6B Prowler is on the fourth cat.

 

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USSR
Carrier Tblisi
(Later russian Kuznetsov)

 

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USS Chaser

 

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USS Midway

 

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Brazil
The aging Brazilian carrier NAe Sao Paulo (A12) in dry dock in Rio de Janeiro, unknown date.

The ship was 37 years old when Brazil bought it from France in 2000. After an engine room explosion in 2005 and a major fire in 2012, the ship was finally decommissioned in 2018.

The ship had the undignified end of being scuttled in Feb 2023 after no ports would accept her for scrapping.

 

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The 1977 Silver Jubilee Fleet Review with some of the ships labeled.

HMS Ark Royal (R09) was laid down in 1943 as an Audacious class fleet carrier but was completed in 1955 to a heavily modified design.

At this stage, she was the only aircraft carrier in the RN capable of operating conventional fixed-wing aircraft and would be withdrawn from service in 1979.

HMS Hermes (R12) was originally laid down in 1944 as a Centaur class light fleet carrier but was completed in 1959 to operate in the Jet Age.

In 1971 (to 1973) she was converted to a commando carrier (LPH) in line with the wishes of the politicians of the day to phase out fixed-wing carriers.

She had been offered to the Australians in 1968 as a replacement for HMAS Melbourne (on the left) but this was refused due to the high operational costs involved.

Hermes would revert to the aircraft carrier role (thanks to the advent of the Sea Harrier) in time to play a crucial role in retaking the Falkland Islands in 1982. She was sold to India (Viraat) in 1987 and had a long successful career before being broken up in 2020.

HMAS Melbourne (R21) was Australia's third aircraft carrier after Sydney and Vengeance and was the third aircraft carrier in the world to be completed with an angled deck in 1955.

She gained a reputation as a jinxed ship after fatal collisions with the destroyers HMAS Voyager in 1964 and USS Frank E. Evans in 1969.

The Melbourne was scrapped in 1982 after 27 years of service for the RAN.