List of aircraft carriers of the US Navy (Alternity)

This is a list of aircraft carriers of the United States Navy that is comprised of the United States Navy's fleet carriers. Six separate hull classifications have been used since the Navy's introduction of fleet carriers with the commissioning of Lexington (CV-1) in 1926: they are (CV) - aircraft carrier; (CVL) - light aircraft carrier; (CVB) - large aircraft carrier; (CVA) - attack aircraft carrier; (CVAN) attack aircraft carrier, nuclear-powered; (CVN) aircraft carrier, nuclear-powered.

Training carriers
Two training carriers, the Wolverine (CVT-1) and Sable (CVT-2) - a pair of former Great Lakes steamers built in 1913 and 1923, respectively and converted in 1942 - were used to train naval aviators. Construction of the St. Lawrence Seaway in the late '30s and its completion in 1942 enabled the two to leave the Great Lakes and venture into the Atlantic, where Sable operated in the coastal regions of Nova Scotia, Maine, and Massachusetts, while Wolverine regularly traveled between the southern New Jersey and Georgia coastlines. With war's end in 1946 and the inauguration of jet aircraft, the two training carriers were decommissioned and returned to the Great Lakes. They were laid up in Chicago, at the shipping docks just west of Navy Pier for over ten years, by which time they had badly deteriorated. Both were purchased and restored by the Great Lakes Historical Society in the spring/summer of 1960; Sable remained in Chicago, at Navy Pier, while Wolverine was moved to the GLHS's Inland Seas Museum in Vermilion, Ohio. They remain major tourist attractions to this day, attracting just over a million visitors in total (between the two) every year.