Aircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier was a type of naval warship in Earth's 20th and 21st century. Its design and size allowed for aircraft, including fighters, bombers, and helicopters, to be launched and retrieved at sea. It was characterized by a long, flat "flight deck" which served as a mobile air base, condensing apron, landing strip, and runway into a small space. Many aircraft carriers after World War II were powered by nuclear fission. 

In an alternate 1944, during , the San Francisco Bay was home to aircraft carriers of the United States Navy. As  flew into the bay, one aircraft carrier was entering the bay, while the other was anchored near Yerba Buena Island. Later, in New York City, Alicia Travers mistook an uniform patch and a subsequent non-committal statement by Jonathan Archer of , as him having served on , which by that time had been sunk in the Pacific Ocean. ()

When the crew of the destroyed starship  traveled back in time to the year 1986, they collected nuclear radiation from the reactor of . This enabled them to recrystallize the dilithium of their captured Klingon Bird-of-Prey. () In 2364, a model of this carrier appeared in Admiral Gregory Quinn's guest quarters on the . ()

By the 22nd century it had become a tradition in Starfleet that its starships honored their historical namesake aircraft carrier predecessors with representations of them in any of their interiors; Enterprise (CVN-65) was represented as a painting in Captain Archer's ready room aboard Enterprise NX-01, whereas the same vessel was in the 24th century represented as a bas-relief in the observation lounge of . (ENT, TNG) Captain Archer also kept a contemporary photograph of one of Enterprise (CV-6)'s squadrons in his ready room, Air Group Ten. () In the 23rd century a representation of Enterprise (CV-6) herself was displayed in a gallery on the recreation deck of the refit-. ()

Appendices

Background information
The very distinctive profile of the uppermost carrier in the San Francisco Bay scene in "Storm Front", strongly suggested it was a member of the pre-World War II  to which USS Enterprise (CV-6) had belonged, and after which Gene Roddenberry had named his  USS Enterprise starship. As she was declared already sunk by Travers, this, historically at least, only left her three class sisters as possible candidates, , after which Roddenberry had originally named his starship in his 1964 Star Trek is... pitch, the scaled-down  version, or , the penultimate American carrier to be destroyed in the war), all of which having in actuality already been sunk by the Japanese Navy by January 1943. Enterprise, having participated in all Pacific campaigns save for the , ironically became the sole class survivor and one of history's most celebrated vessels, much like its fictional starship counterpart. The San Francisco Bay scene in "Storm Front" was entirely executed as a CGI effect at digital effects company Eden FX. (end credit roll)

As it turned out, all Yorktown-class sister ships were considered at the start of the second season of The Original Series by Producers D.C. Fontana and Robert Justman as namesakes for starships belonging to, what they at the time still called, the Starship-class,  having been introduced into the franchise at a later time in dialogue in the second season episode  (though never firmly established in canon as being ). The annotations on their memos made it very clear that the two Star Trek staffers very much indeed had the WW II carriers in mind when making the name suggestions, and not any other, prior historical vessel, as was abundantly evidenced by the remark Justman made on his memo of 9 August 1967, which read, "I think there would be several other candidates, such as  and perhaps another English carrier, a , a Russian carrier and certainly a Japanese carrier." (The Making of Star Trek, pp. 164-165)

Other Constitution-class vessels named after aircraft carriers include:
  – after , the  and class-sister of the by Justman-suggested Saratoga, and/or , an , the latter being renamed from USS Cabot to honor the former when it was lost in the Coral Sea (as were class-sisters USS Yorktown (CV-10), USS Hornet (CV-12), and USS Wasp (CV-18) in honor of their by then lost Yorktown-class predecessors). Lexington was later followed by  carrying the name.
  – after , another Essex-class.
  – after , a , and the only post-WW II carrier in the list of name suggestions. Starfleet  followed for this vessel as well.
  – after the British carrier  (no class and sunk in the Mediterranean Sea, after having fought alongside the original USS Wasp CV-7).
 USS Essex – after the class vessel  – nearly made the cut at the time initially, as it was already referenced to in first script draft dialogue treatment, dated 30 September 1967, page 64, for the second season episode , which contained a line having Lieutenant Uhura state, "Starfleet Command confirms alien attack on the other starships, sir. The enemy was defeated. Starships Essex and Eagle suffered heavy damage, but will make base."
The above reference to the Essex and the Eagle, though, was dropped from the episode as aired,  but USS Eagle resurfaced a quarter of a century later in , referenced in the "Operation Retrieve" mission charts, courtesy of Michael Okuda. Even Essex resurfaced as the   (NCC-173) in the  season five episode .

At least three other starships, established by production staffers as being named after aircraft carriers, were later added to canon in the  fifth season episode  and the  third season episode , which included,
 (NCC-62158), a  – after IJN  (ex-, and at long last fulfilling Justman's wish to have a Japanese carrier included in Starfleet.)
 (NCC-45231), a  – after the original suggestion of Fontana and Justman, it too was finally inducted into canon. It was actually the inclusion of Hornet that prompted episode Writer Ronald D. Moore to champion Akagi (which had taken part in the raid on Pearl Harbor); as the two carriers were direct adversaries in the bitterly contested June 1942 , Akagi being sunk in that battle, Moore felt it only fitting that in Star Treks future both vessels would serve alongside each other. ()
 (NCC-2573), an  – after , a  ship. ()

Other Starfleet vessels potentially named after aircraft carriers, but not confirmed either way by production sources, included,
 (NCC-10376), an  – after British carrier , the very first carrier in history specifically designed as such (not being a conversion from an existing ship, as all its predecessors had been), but lost in World War II, ironically sunk by planes from Akagi.
 (NCC-59804), a  – after either , an  vessel, and the last American carrier to be sunk in World War II, and/or , an Essex-class vessel renamed for the former Princeton lost in battle, as was by then customary in the US Navy.

In The Voyage Home, the "part" of USS Enterprise (CVN-65) was actually filled by the conventionally-powered  USS Ranger (CV-61) because Enterprise, on which the producers had actually wanted to shoot the scenes, was on deployment at the time of the movie's filming. Most of the (background) performers seen aboard the carrier were actual Ranger crew. () Incidentally, Ranger also stood in for CVN-65 in several scenes shot for the aviation film Top Gun of the same year.

The painting of Enterprise (CVN-65) in Archer's ready room was one of a series of four illustrations depicting the historical lineage of Enterprise and made by Production Illustrator John Eaves, who, due to his own oversight, had only 24 hours to produce the drawings. Actually, Eaves had produced a series of five; however, due to space limitations on the wall, one had to be left out. The one chosen to be left out portrayed Enterprise (CV-6). Arguably, this was because CVN-65 had been the more prominently featured one in the Star Trek productions visually, contrary to the fleeting one-time visual appearance of CV-6 in The Motion Picture, apart from the one oral reference in "Storm Front", thereby establishing a visual continuity.  Set Decorator James Mees hinted at this when he stated, "We were trying to show that [Archer] was someone who had a past, a good past, and who remembered that past; that's what the show is so much about." () Nonetheless, one ephemeral reference to CV-6 was retained in Archer's room as set dressing, the Air Group Ten photograph.

During the production of , copies of The Voyage Home were especially flown to her namesake Enterprise (CVN-65), being again on deployment, so that her sailors could enjoy for themselves the fictional events which supposedly took place on their ship. Several Enterprise crew members subsequently made cameo appearances as Starfleet dignitaries in the series' episode , before she was decommisioned in 2012, having in turn become nicknamed "the Starship," after her fictional counterpart. ()

The  for  described the length of the long range shuttle  to USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) as "about the size of a fighter aircraft floating in over the vastness of an aircraft carrier".

According to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual (p. 83), Earth-based aircraft carriers were phased out in 2051.

Footnotes

External link
 

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