Aircraft Carriers
Aircraft carriers played a significant role in World War II. Many of World War II’s greatest battles were fought at sea, making naval technologies crucial to all sides. Many kinds of the ships of this war, such as battleships, submarines, and aircraft carriers, were used in wars before, but this war made naval battles very important. These ships were armed warships to support craft such as fuel ships and troop landing boats. All the ships used in the war, the aircraft carriers were the largest. An aircraft carrier is a ship that’s purpose is to bring airplanes closer to the battle fields on land or sea. Since most World War II aircraft had a range of just a few hundred miles, they had to bring the aircraft to the battlefront. The aircraft carrier made a lot of sense in the Pacific where most of the fighting took place on islands and coastal areas.
The Aircraft Carrier is a flat ship with a long flight deck that has takeoffs and landings by high-performance airplanes. And the decks are angled so that pilots will be able to go around again without hitting other aircraft. So a carrier is basically a mobile air base. The planes that are used are stored below deck and brought up and down on huge elevators. When they need to be used they will be brought up and are able to take off on 1000 feet long runway. The landing strips were short, so a catapult helped launch the aircraft into the air. The United States carriers used a hook on the bottom of the plane to catch a wire, strung across the deck, which helped bring the plane to a halt. When taking off, they were able to reach the speed of 150 mph in less than 3 seconds after take off. When they come down for a landing, each carrier aircraft has a tail hook. It is a hook bolted to an 8-foot bar that extends out from the after part of the aircraft. The tail hook is what the pilot catches, one of the four steel cables stretched across the deck. It brings the plane which is traveling at 150 miles per...