Editing Flight deck (section)

{{short description|Landing/take off surface of an aircraft carrier}}
{{about|the flight deck of an aircraft carrier|the flight deck of an aircraft|cockpit|other uses|Flight Deck (disambiguation)}}
{{Use American English|date=December 2017}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2022}}
[[File:French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle (R91) underway on 24 April 2019 (190424-M-BP588-1005).jpg|thumb|Flight deck of [[French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle|''Charles de Gaulle'']], catapults are installed on aircraft carriers in three countries.]]
[[File:World Navy Aircraft carries chart.svg|thumb|Various types of flight deck configurations, some of which include ski-jump ramps which can be found on aircraft carriers in several countries.]]

The '''flight deck''' of an [[aircraft carrier]] is the [[Deck (ship)|surface]] on which its [[aircraft]] take off and land, essentially a miniature airfield at sea. On smaller naval ships which do not have aviation as a primary mission, the [[Helicopter deck|landing area]] for [[helicopter]]s and other [[VTOL]] aircraft is also referred to as the flight deck. The official [[United States Navy|U.S. Navy]] term for these vessels is "air-capable ships".<ref>{{cite book |title=NATOPS Instrument Flight Manual NAVAIR 00-80T-112 : "Helicopter Operation Procedures for Air-Capable Ships" |year=2006 |publisher=Naval Air Systems Command, Department of the Navy}}</ref>

Flight decks have been in use upon ships since 1910, the American pilot [[Eugene Ely]] being the first individual to take off from a warship. Initially consisting of wooden ramps built over the [[forecastle]] of [[capital ship]]s, a number of [[battlecruiser]]s, including the British {{HMS|Furious|47|6}} and {{sclass|Courageous|aircraft carrier|4}}, the American {{USS|Lexington|CV-2|6}} and {{USS|Saratoga|CV-3|2}}, and the Japanese [[Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi|''Akagi'']] and battleship [[Japanese aircraft carrier Kaga|''Kaga'']], were converted to aircraft carriers during the [[interwar period]]. The first aircraft carrier to feature a full-length flight deck, akin to the configuration of the modern vessels, was the converted liner {{HMS|Argus|1917|6}} which entered service in 1918. The [[armoured flight deck]] was another innovation pioneered by the [[Royal Navy]] during the 1930s. Early landing arrangements relied on the low speed and landing speed of the era's aircraft, being simply "caught" by a team of deck-hands in a fairly hazardous arrangement, but these became impractical as heavier aircraft with higher landing speeds emerged; thus an arrangement of [[arrestor cable]]s and [[tailhook]]s soon became the favoured approach.

During the [[Cold War]] era, numerous innovations were introduced to the flight deck. The angled flight deck, invented by [[Dennis Cambell]] of the Royal Navy, was one prominent design feature that drastically simplified aircraft recovery and deck movements, enabling landing and launching operations to be performed simultaneously rather than interchangeably; it also better handled the higher landing speeds of [[jet propulsion|jet-powered]] aircraft. In 1952, {{HMS|Triumph|R16|6}} became the first aircraft carrier to trial the angled flight deck. Another advance was the [[Ski-jump (aviation)|ski-jump]], which fitted an angled ramp on the flight deck near the end of the aircraft's takeoff run; the change greatly reduced the distance required and became particularly useful for operating [[STOVL]] aircraft. Furthermore, various unsuccessful concepts to replace or complement the conventional flight deck have emerged over the years, from the flexible flight deck to the [[submarine aircraft carrier]] and [[flying boat]] [[fighter aircraft]].