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    On April 26, China's first homemade aircraft carrier(航空母舰) hit the water in Dalian, Liaoning. It is China's second aircraft carrier and it has no name yet. It was designed in China.

    It is about 315 meters long and 75 meters wide. It is a bit larger than three soccer fields. It can carry 40 to 50 planes.It is the largest and best ship China has ever built.

    An aircraft carrier is like an airport on the sea. It can carry hundreds of planes. Planes fly from and land back on it, and soldiers work and live on it. It is expensive to build an aircraft carrier. It costs a lot of money and uses a lot of steel. It also uses technologies. Finally, it takes years to build.

    Today, not many countries own an aircraft carrier or have the ability to build one. When the new carrier is finished, China will become the seventh country in the world that can build an aircraft carrier by itself, after the US, Russia, UK, France, Italy and Spain.