Global InformationBrazilian aircraft carrier Minas Gerais information
 Minas Gerais
| |
| History | |
|---|---|
 Brazil | |
| Name | Minas Gerais |
| Namesake | State of Minas Gerais |
| Builder | Swan Hunter |
| Laid down | 16 November 1942 as HMS Vengeance (R71) |
| Launched | 23 February 1944 |
| Completed | 15 January 1945 |
| Acquired | 14 December 1956 |
| Builder | Verolme Dock, Rotterdam (reconstruction) |
| Cost | US$27,000,000 |
| Commissioned | 6 December 1960 |
| Decommissioned | 16 October 2001 |
| Fate | Scrapped in India in 2004 |
| Badge |  |
| General characteristics (Brazil service) | |
| Class and type | Modified Colossus-class aircraft carrier |
| Displacement |
|
| Length |
|
| Beam | 80 ft (24 m) |
| Draught | 24.5 ft (7.5 m) |
| Speed | 25 knots (46 km/h; 29 mph) at 120 revolutions |
| Range |
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| Complement | 1,000 + 300 air group |
| Sensors and processing systems |
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| Armament |
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| Aircraft carried | 21 |
| Notes | Taken from:[1] |
NAeL Minas Gerais (pennant number A 11) was a Colossus-class light aircraft carrier operated by the Marinha do Brasil (MB, Brazilian Navy) from 1960 until 2001. The ship was laid down for the United Kingdom's Royal Navy during World War II as HMS Vengeance, was completed shortly before the war's end, and did not see combat. After stints as a training vessel and Arctic research ship, the carrier was loaned to the Royal Australian Navy from 1952 to 1955. She was returned to the British, who sold her to Brazil in 1956.
The ship underwent a four-year conversion in the Netherlands to make her capable of operating heavier naval aircraft. She was commissioned into the MB as Minas Gerais (named after the state of Minas Gerais) in 1960; the first purchased by a Latin American nation, and the second to enter service, behind the Argentinian ARA Independencia (also Colossus-class). Between 1987 and 1996, the carrier was unable to operate fixed-wing aircraft because of a defective catapult, and was retasked as a helicopter carrier and amphibious assault ship.
Minas Gerais remained in service until 2001, when she was replaced by NAe São Paulo. At the time of her decommissioning, she was the oldest operational aircraft carrier in the world, and the last operational unit of the World War II Light Fleet design. Despite attempts to preserve the carrier as a museum ship, and after several failed attempts to auction the ship off (including a listing on eBay), Minas Gerais was sold for scrap in 2004 and taken to Alang, India for breaking up.
- ^ Sharpe (ed.), Jane's Fighting Ships, 1996–1997, p. 55