US Navy ENSIGN Ezra Ward, a flight deck officer onboard the Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier, USS GEORGE WASHINGTON (CVN 73), works in flight deck control prior to a mass-casualty drill on the flight deck while underway in the Persian Gulf. The ship is in the Gulf as part of an Southwest Asia build-up of forces in reaction to Iraq's refusal of U.N. sponsored weapons inspections

Aircraft carriers are warships that act as airbases for carrier-based aircraft. In the United States Navy, these consist of ships commissioned with hull classification symbols CV (aircraft carrier), CVA (attack aircraft carrier), CVB (large aircraft carrier), CVL (light aircraft carrier), CVN (aircraft carrier (nuclear propulsion) and CVAN (attack aircraft carrier (nuclear propulsion). The first aircraft carrier commissioned into the United States Navy was USS Langley (CV-1) on 20 March 1922.