At the dawn of the twentieth century, the Wright brothers made their first flight on an airplane. And after 7 years, ship aviation was born. Its creation gave a new round to the 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 became the personification of US military power.
general information
This Nimitz class ship is one of the largest ships in the world. Its purpose is to work together with other aircraft carriers as part of the strike group and defeat large surface targets, as well as to ensure the defense of military formations from air attacks and air operations. The aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt is the fourth ship of this type. Its construction began at the end of October 1980. He was launched on October 27, 1985. The ship was commissioned in 1986. The total construction costs amounted to about four and a half billion dollars.
Options and features
The aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt is a US Navy warship with a length of 330 meters and a width of 78 meters. The power of the ship is 260 thousand horsepower. Its aviation group includes about 60 fighters and 30 helicopters. The aircraft carrier will have enough water and provisions for three months of continuous duty in the ocean or sea. Four meals a day. The presence of desalination plants allows daily production of about one and a half tons of drinking water. Inside the ship there are 1, 400 telephones, and the total length of the cables is about 2, 600 kilometers. By the way, 16% of the crew of the ship are women who live in separate cabins from men.
Digital data
Let us consider in more detail the aircraft carrier "Theodore Roosevelt", the characteristic of which is in the following key indicators:
- Displacement - 98, 235 tons (with a maximum load - 104, 112 tons).
- Travel speed - thirty knots (almost 60 km / h).
- Two nuclear reactors A4W and 4 turbines.
- Service life may exceed 50 years.
- The staff is 3200 people.
Port of registry of the ship - base "Norfolk".
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 more than 4, 000 sorties were carried out from his deck. In 2015, the ship was involved in the fight against 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 water-water reactor and two autonomous loops of the first circuit, also there are 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 helms.
The flight deck has an area of 182, 000 sq.m. Its structure includes park, take-off and landing sites. Covering the deck creates an optimal grip of the aircraft landing gear with him, thereby ensuring a safe landing. Also, the deck is made of sheets, which, if necessary, are easily mounted or dismantled.
Armament
The aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, whose photo you can see in this article, has:
- Three anti-aircraft missile systems.
- Four artillery complexes "Volcano-Phalanx".
- Two three-pipe torpedo tubes (protect from torpedoes moving towards the ship).
The availability of special electronic protection means allows the sailors of the aircraft carrier to know about the location of a hundred aircraft within a radius of three hundred miles around it.
