Aircraft carriers

The first aircraft carriers

   General features of the concept of aircraft carriers have been proposed in the report of the naval attache of the U.S. in France in 1908. More detail the concept of aircraft carriers has been described in the book of Clement Andera "L'Aviation Militaire", published in 1909.

   The first deck has committed 14 November, 1910 American Eugene B. Ely with side light cruiser "Birmingham" (engl. USS Birmingham (CL-2)). This was made possible by a nose mounted on a ship off the platform. Two months later, on 18 January 1911, he landed on board the armored cruiser "PA" (engl. USS Pennsylvania). Especially for this was mounted a wooden flight deck, from which the pilot shortly after the successful landing took off again.

   The first aircraft carrier by this (admittedly carrying seaplanes) was a British aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal (eng. Ark Royal), which was adopted in 1915. The ship participated in the First World War and held the positions of the Turkish bombardment.

   Very extravagant project was the British HMS Furious - great light cruiser, the project was to be equipped with two 457-mm guns tower, but still on the stocks front tower "Fyuriesa" was removed and instead it was mounted flight deck. The resulting hybrid was a misnomer, because it's flight deck was sufficient to take-off, however it was too small for a successful landing on an aircraft carrier. Therefore, the ship was rebuilt and is equipped with an additional 100-meter "landing" deck, located behind the superstructure. Then it turned out that the landing aircraft on a moving aircraft carrier is now hampered by ... swirl of the superstructure deck and chimney. So when building the British HMS Argus, rebuilt from an Italian passenger liner Conte Rosso, altogether from any add-ons it is equipped with a large flat deck, radically solving the problem of aircraft landing on aircraft carrier. However, the operation has identified the need to have at least one add-in load as the command bridge, and the positions of observation and communication. Therefore, after the war, with the construction of aircraft carriers HMS Eagle and HMS Hermes, it was decided to set on the right side a special add-island type. Nevertheless, due to skepticism about the restructuring of the Admiralty during the next HMS Furious, removing all the add-in did not install "island". And only 15 years later, the island in HMS Furious yet been established. [4] did not have this add-in to the American USS Langley (CV-1), Japanese, Jose, as well as a number of escort aircraft carriers.

   The first aircraft carrier in the fleet of the Russian empire appeared on Nov. 19, 1904, he became "Rus", bought for donations of Count Stroganov in Germany. "Rus" carried on board the balloon 8 and 1 spherical balloon. "Russia" and did not take part in Russian-yaposkoy war, and shortly after the defeat at Tsusimy, it is sold "as unnecessary". A few years later, in 1909 the captain of ship-building engineers L. Matsevich, made in St. Petersburg with a report on the need for an aircraft carrier, and then six months suggested a project to build aircraft carrier by 25 airplanes, with prior experience in one of the destroyers. In spring of 1910 Lieutenant K. Konkotkinym, was offered a much cheaper project to rebuild the outdated ship "Admiral Lazarev", in the present with the aircraft carrier flight deck and hangar. Although both projects were not rejected, the project Matsevicha has been sent to the archive after his death in a fall of 1910. A draft Konokotkina received an initial approval, was closed after its translation into the Amur fleets with the phrase "Case production itself discontinued". Nevertheless, with the beginning of the First World War, the navy again reminded of the aircraft carrier, but since this build aircraft carriers was already too late, it was decided to convert steamers Empress Alexandra, Emperor Alexander I, Emperor Nicholas I, in Romania, as well as complement armament cruiser Almaz hydroplane. Moreover, "The Empress Alexandra" was immediately renamed in "Orlici", and "The Emperor Alexander I" and the "The Emperor Nicholas I" renamed were in the Republican and the Aviator only after the February Revolution.