How many aircraft carriers does america have?

The U.S. Navy operates 19 ships that could be called aircraft carriers, but only considers 10 to be actual carriers. Last week the U.S. Navy accepted USS America, first of the America-class amphibious assault ships, into service. read more

Inevitably, the delivery of USS America rekindles the ongoing conversation over what, precisely, constitutes an aircraft carrier. In the United States, we endure the polite fiction that the USN’s 45,000 ton aircraft carriers are not aircraft carriers, but rather some other kind of creature. read more

The United States Navy also has several full-deck, amphibious assault ships, which are larger than many of the aircraft carriers of other navies today. These ships are STOVL-capable and can carry full squadrons of fixed-wing aircraft, such as the V/STOL AV-8B Harrier II and the STOVL F-35 Lightning II, along with numerous rotary-wing aircraft. read more

United States of America The United States now operates 10 Nimitz-class "supercarriers," aircraft carriers that dwarf all other flat-tops worldwide both in size and capability. The Nimitz carriers are 1,092 feet long and weigh a whopping 101,600 tons—60 percent larger than their nearest counterparts, the Queen Elizabeth class. read more