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From a distance, it looks like a war plane imagined by Hayao Miyazaki, or the type of machine that could only exist in a science fiction novel. But according to aviation enthusiasts who captured footage of it soaring in the California skies last week, it’s an experimental aircraft designed by Stratolaunch, an aerospace company located in the Mojave Desert. Chances are, residents in surrounding towns will see more of it, too. Described as the world’s largest flying aircraft, Roc — which looks like two 747s fused together and has a wingspan larger than a football field — recently completed a...

When it comes to aircraft carriers, the nation with the most is the United States. The U.S. Navy operates 11 nuclear aircraft carriers of various designs, and more are on the way as the service replaces its aging fleet of Nimitz-class carriers with the new Gerald R. Ford-class carriers. These are massive ships and the largest warships ever constructed in military history. Each Ford-class vessel displaces around 100,000 tons of seawater and measures 1,092 feet in length, with a flight deck width of 256 feet. That's a lot of ship to move around, but despite its mass, a Ford-class carrier...

The US lost an F-18E Super Hornet jet fighter on April 28th when the aircraft, under tow in the hangar deck of the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75), fell into the sea, along with the tractor that towed it. There was only one minor injury to a crew member who apparently was injured when jumping from either the tractor or the F-18. The aircraft and the tractor were lost at sea. A critical question is whether this was simply an accident or if the cause of the aircraft and tractor loss was due to an attack launched by the...

The captain of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier that slammed into a ship near Egypt last week was yanked from the position “due to a loss of confidence in his ability,” the US Navy said Thursday. Capt. Dave Snowden was “relieved” of his job at the helm of the USS Harry S. Truman and temporarily reassigned following the wild Feb. 12 crash in the Mediterranean Sea, according to the military branch. “The U.S. Navy holds commanding officers to the highest standard and takes action to hold them accountable when those standards are not met,” the Navy said in a statement.

The US Naval Forces have released photos showing the extent of the damage sustained on the US Navy aircraft carrier after it collided with a merchant ship last week. The warship, named USS Harry S. Truman, has docked at a US naval facility in Souda Bay, Greece, while it undergoes repairs following the incident near the entrance to the Suez Canal. The ship had collided with the Besiktas-M - a 617-foot-long, 53,000-ton bulk carrier registered in Panama. Both of the ships were traveling in the Mediterranean Sea when they collided. The photos show extensive damage to the exterior starboard quarter...

WASHINGTON (TNND) — The aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman was involved in a collision at sea with a merchant vessel near Port Said, Egypt Wednesday, according to the U.S. Navy. The collision happened around 11:46 p.m. while both ships were moving in the Mediterranean Sea. There were no reports of flooding or injuries aboard the carrier and the ship's propulsion systems were not damaged, the Navy said in a statement. None of the crew on the merchant ship, the Besiktas-M, were injured either, according to a defense official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details that...

The aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman collided with a large merchant vessel Wednesday night in the vicinity of Port Said, Egypt, in the Mediterranean Sea."The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) was involved in a collision with the merchant vessel Besiktas-M at approximately 11:46 p.m. local time, Feb. 12, while operating in the vicinity of Port Said, Egypt, in the Mediterranean Sea," a statement from the U.S Navy's Sixth Fleet said.The collision involved a rare collision of two large vessels as the 100,000-ton aircraft carrier collided with the 53,000-ton merchant vessel Besiktas-M, a Panamanian-flagged cargo ship.There...

The USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier collided with a merchant ship off the coast of Egypt, officials said. The US Navy said the carrier collided with the Besiktas-M ship at 11:46 p.m. Wednesday while operating near Port Said, in the Mediterranean Sea.

The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force's helicopter destroyer JS Kaga (DDH-184) arrived in San Diego shrouded in dense fog, marking the start of F-35B Lightning II training operations with the U.S. Navy. What You Need to Know: The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force's helicopter destroyer JS Kaga (DDH-184) arrived in San Diego shrouded in dense fog, marking the start of F-35B Lightning II training operations with the U.S. Navy. The vessel will undergo assessments to optimize operations of the short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) fifth-generation fighter, with tests running until November 18, 2024. This is Kaga's first deployment since modifications to...

The aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower — which had been leading the response against Houthi attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden — is returning home. U.S. Central Command announced that the carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt will head to the Middle East to maintain a presence in the region. The Eisenhower was deployed to the region more than seven months ago — just a few weeks after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack against Israel.

China's People's Liberation Army - Navy ship "Longushan" is reportedly ablaze just off the coast of China tonight. The vessel is reported to be "China's most advanced warship." No OFFICIAL word on what caused the fire. I am not sure if China has acknowledged the fire yet ... All mention of this is being rapidly scrubbed from China social media networks, and no official information is coming out of Beijing. The vessel bears Hull Number 980 and is described as a Type 071 landing ship. China's fifth Type 071 amphibious transport dock (LPD) Longhushan; with hull number 980) was commissioned...

Israeli troops on Saturday were hunting a Hamas commander described as Palestine's Osama bin Laden, vowing to find him wherever he was hiding and insisting his days were numbered. Yahya Sinwar, 60, is the current head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. He has been arrested by Israel multiple times and spent 24 years in Israeli prisons: he was freed in 2011, as part of a prisoner swap in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Sinwar is being held responsible for the murder of 1,300 Israelis in the October 7 attack. The U.S. death toll rose to 29 on Saturday,...

A Cold War British nuclear sub sneaked into a Soviet naval exercise and took closeup underwater pictures of Russia’s new aircraft carrier. n 1977, with the Cold War in full swing, the U.K. Royal Navy’s nuclear-powered attack submarine HMS Swiftsure (S-126) slipped right into the heart of a large-scale Soviet Northern Fleet exercise in the Barents Sea. The British submarine penetrated undetected through the layered escort screens of destroyers and frigates and meticulously approached the Russian aircraft carrier Kiev. The submarine recorded extremely valuable acoustic signatures and took incredible underwater periscope pictures of the Soviet carrier’s hull and propellers. As...

Update(1718ET): The United States says it's watching ongoing Chinese military drills around Taiwan very closely, while condemning the latest series of ballistic missiles fired over the island as a severe provocation and escalation. The White House has ordered the Ronald Reagan carrier strike group to stay in the area.US National Security Council (NSC) spokesman John Kirby said in statements to MSNBC Thursday: "We’ve been watching this very, very closely. It’s concerning. It’s not just concerning to us, but it’s concerning, of course, to the people of Taiwan. It’s concerning to to our allies in the region, especially Japan.""The provocateur here...

n a ribbon-cutting ceremony held at the Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai, officials unveiled the Type 003 warship. The Fujian — which, according to officials cited in state media, would not be battle-ready for five years — is an important milestone in Beijing’s ambitions to develop a “blue water” navy, capable of projecting power far beyond its shores. The carrier has been the focus of intense interest among military observers and rival nations tracking the development of China’s navy. China’s first two carriers include a retrofit of an old Soviet model, the Liaoning, bought from Ukraine in 1998, and the Shandong,...

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is using an advanced intelligence-gathering satellite for hunting US aircraft carriers and other military assets worldwide, according to South China Morning Post. Space researcher Yang Fang and her team at DFH Satellite Co., Ltd in Hong Kong published a report in the domestic peer-reviewed journal Spacecraft Engineering that reveals China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) used an AI-powered satellite to detect and “live stream” the USS Harry S. Truman. A remote sensing satellite, powered by artificial intelligence technology, lurked in low Earth orbit above North America on June 17 of last year and automatically detected the...

Eleanor Watson Tue, May 3, 2022, 12:21 PM·3 min read The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington leaves the US naval base in Yokosuka, 60 kms south of Tokyo, for the last time for refueling and complex overhaul on May 18, 2015. / Credit: TORU YAMANAKA/AFP via Getty Images (TORU YAMANAKA/AFP via Getty Images) More than 200 sailors on the USS George Washington took the opportunity Monday to move off the ship to accommodations at a local installation. The move is part of the Navy's response to support the crew who lost three shipmates to suicide within one week in...

Within hours prior to the Xi-Biden call which is now in progress, China sent an aircraft carrier through the Taiwan Strait on Friday in what’s being seen as a message to the West. “The timing of the Shandong’s movements, being so close to the US-China President’s call, was described as provocative by the source,” Reuters described. “Around 10:30 a.m. the CV-17 appeared around 30 nautical miles to the southwest of Kinmen, and was photographed by a passenger on a civilian flight,” the source told Reuters of the pass-through which was also confirmed by Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense. Via The National...

Gere's What You Need to Remember: Ideological and financial concerns mean there are a lot of things India won’t buy from the United States or Europe, leaving Russia as their sole source of weapons. Like a lot of countries, India wants the best weapons it can afford. But ideological and financial concerns mean there are a lot of things it won’t buy from the United States or Europe. That pretty much leaves, well, Russia. India has been a big buyer of Russian weapons for 50 years. Those haven’t been easy years for New Delhi. India’s defense contracts with Russia have...

A second suspected missile target in the shape of a U.S. aircraft carrier has been spotted in a rural Chinese desert, according to satellite photos obtained by USNI News.The site consists of a single aircraft carrier target, miles from the nearest town in the Xinjiang region, according to photos provided to USNI News by satellite imagery company Maxar. The carrier target is about 300 miles away from a larger suspected missile range in the Taklamakan Desert, first reported by USNI News on Sunday. The two sites share similar characteristics and are aligned on a map with the carriers facing the...