At the dawn of the twentieth century, the Wright brothers made their first airplane flight. And after 7 years, naval aviation was born. Its creation gave a new round of development of the military industry and after some time led to the emergence of a new type of ships capable of being a floating airfield. One of these ships is the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, which has become the embodiment of US military power.
General information
This Nimitz-class ship is one of the largest ships in the world. Its purpose is to act jointly with other aircraft carriers as part of a strike group and destroy large surface targets, as well as to ensure the defense of military formations from air attacks and conduct air operations. The aircraft carrier "Theodore Roosevelt" is the fourth ship of this type. Its construction began at the end of October 1980. It was launched on October 27, 1985. The ship entered service in 1986. The total construction costs amounted to about four and a half billiondollars.
Parameters and features
The aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt is a combat vessel of the US Navy, which is 330 meters long and 78 meters wide. The power of the ship is 260 thousand horsepower. Its aviation group includes about 60 fighters and 30 helicopters. The stocks of water and provisions on the aircraft carrier will be enough for three months of uninterrupted duty in the ocean or sea. Military food is four times a day. The presence of desalination plants makes it possible to produce about one and a half tons of drinking water daily. There are 1,400 telephones inside the ship, and the total length of cables is about 2,600 kilometers. By the way, 16% of the ship's crew are women who live in separate cabins from men.
Digital data
Let's take a closer look at the Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier, whose characteristics are the following main indicators:
- Displacement - 98,235 tons (at maximum load - 104,112 tons).
- Travel speed - thirty knots (almost 60 km/h).
- Two A4W nuclear reactors and 4 turbines.
- Service life may exceed 50 years.
- Staff - 3200 people.
The ship's home port is the Norfolk base.
Combat use
In 1999, during the military campaign in Yugoslavia, the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt was put on combat duty. In addition, he took part in an operation called "Desert Storm", during which time from his deck wasover 4,000 sorties flown. In 2015, the ship was used to fight the Islamic State.
Ship structure
The American aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt is made of steel sheets welded together. The flight deck and all load-bearing structural elements are made of armored steel. About sixty thousand tons of steel was spent on the entire ship.
The nuclear power plant has a pressurized water reactor and two autonomous loops of the primary circuit, there are also two steam generators and circulation cooling pumps, a volume compensation system. The total thermal power of the reactor is colossal and amounts to almost 90 MW.
The ship moves thanks to four propellers. The diameter of each of them is 6.4 meters, and the weight is three tons. The aircraft carrier is controlled by four steering wheels.
The flight deck has an area of 182,000 sq.m. It includes park, take-off and landing areas. The deck covering creates an optimal grip of the aircraft landing gear with it, thereby ensuring a safe landing. Also, the deck is made of sheets, which, if necessary, are easily mounted or dismantled.
Armaments
The Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier, whose photo you can see in this article, has:
- Three anti-aircraft missile systems.
- Four Vulkan Phalanx artillery systems.
- Two triple-tube torpedo tubes (protect against torpedoes moving towards the ship).
Availabilityspecial means of electronic protection allows the sailors of an aircraft carrier to know the location of one hundred aircraft within a radius of up to three hundred miles around it.
Today's deployment
In October 2015, the command of the US Navy decided to withdraw the aircraft carrier from the Persian Gulf, where it had been based for the past six months to conduct active combat operations in the fight against ISIS. The ship must undergo scheduled maintenance, which will last at least two months. In place of "Theodore Roosevelt" should arrive another aircraft carrier - "Harry Truman".
