Modern Aircraft Carrier

Good morning/afternoon/evening. My name is M.Dilshan. I am your host for today’s topic that is Modern Aircraft carrier. I wanted to make this podcast to show how technology has advanced.

Let me ask you a question? What floats on water but acts as a runway for aircrafts? If you got the answer right, then congratulations! Didn’t get it right? Its ok no problem. Lets have another question. How many warplanes can an aircraft carrier have? If you don’t know the answer, no problem we will learn along the way.

Now lets start!!!

An aircraft carrier is a huge warship that serves as a seagoing air base with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying and recovering aircrafts. Typically, it is the capital ship of the fleet. Which has a small runway on it. A runway is a place where planes land.

Most of the time the aircrafts and helicopters will on the deck of the aircraft carrier. An average carrier can take 30 or more than 30 aircrafts. Fact: The 332.8m super carrier can take more than 60 aircrafts. All of the warplanes not only stay on the aircraft carrier but also land on it and take of from it. Most aircraft carriers have a ramp on its front side. It has a very important job; it helps aircrafts to take off. Now you will be wondering why do we need a ramp when an aircraft can take off by itself with just a runway?

Let me explain this part more clearly: a plane needs a certain speed to take off and as we know the carrier has a small runway on it, this means that the aircraft cannot take off by itself with just the runway as because it needs a long runway to take off. That’s where the ramp comes in – the small runway itself is enough for the speed of the plane to go on the ramp, the ramp makes a plane in a slanting position for take off.

Fact Time: There are 45 aircrafts carrier are in active around the world and the United States has the most aircraft carrier and most of them are active. India has 6 aircraft carriers in total, but right now only one of them is active. That is our pride INS Vikrant aircraft carrier that costs Rs.23, 000Cr and the most expensive aircraft carrier is the United States aircraft carrier Gerald Ford that is 13 billion dollars. The aircraft carriers are one of the most complex floating army/navy equipment, which play a major role in the defence of the country.

Jai Hind!!!