DOCUMENTARIES

Aircraft Carriers

Discovery Channel
(1998)
52 minutes

By Richard Moore

In the days of fighting sail the battleship was the supreme piece of military hardware that projected imperial power around the globe.

In the modern world it is the aircraft carrier and this first-rate documentary from the Discovery Channel Aircraft Carriers gives you an inside look at the greatest military weapons ever created.

Having been lucky enough to have been on a carrier - the Eisenhower way back in the late 1980s - I have to say that even small ones are breathtaking brutes.

This documentary focuses on the massive John C. Stennis, which has enough firepower to match the armed forces of more than 70 per cent of countries in the world.

It looks at the aircraft, the crew, the armaments and how planes are launched. Right down to the nuts and bolts of flight deck information - literally, because computers were so slow at dealing with the complicated proceedures those in charge went back to using fasteners to indicate the status of operational aircraft!

Aside from the Stennis, Aircraft Carriers also investigates the smaller carriers used by the US Marines and Royal Navy and how effective the latter was during the Falklands War.

For fans of modern military matters this is a really informative programme.

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