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While working on the European Aircraft Carriers I had to decide which ships to include into the selection of aircraft carriers. I decided to choose all ships designated as aircraft carriers plus the Russian "Kuznetsov" who is called a heavy aviation cruiser but regarded as an aircraft carrier by the western navies. Not included were helicopter carriers although they are aircraft carriers too. Helicopter carriers operate rotary wing aircrafts only while what is usually called an aircraft carrier operates a mixture of fixed wing and rotary wing aircrafts. Therefore, I finally decided to create a seperate section for the European helicopter carrier. As almost every modern major warship operates helicopters today, it is hard to decide what is a helicopter carrier and what is a warship just operating helicopters. My final decision is a compromise. I choose all designated helicopter cruisers and all ships with a significant number of helicopters operated. As an significant number of helicopters I regard 6 helicopters as that is the number of helicopters operated by the Italian helicopter cruiser "Vittorio Veneto" as the smallest helicopter cruiser. The only exception from this ruling is the Italian San Giorgio class with its full flight deck although they operate 5 helicopters only.
Beside the countries mentioned on this page Belgium in cooperation with Luxemburg, Germany, Poland and Portugal considered the further development of their amphibious capabilities which might have lead to the purchase of landing plattform docks like the Dutch/Spanish Rotterdam/Galicia class. Due to lack of funds most projects have been canceled. Only the portugese NPL-Project will become reality by 2010.
last update 28.06.2006