Project 1153 OREL

Project 1153 Oryol (Орёл, Eagle) was a planned 1970s-era Soviet program to give the Soviet Navy a true blue water aviation capability. The ship would have been about 75-80,000 tons displacement, with a nuclear power plant and carried about 70 aircraft launched via steam catapults. It was designed with a large offensive capability with the ship mounts including 24 vertical launch tubes for anti-ship cruise missiles. It was cancelled as being too expensive and a reduced version of 60,000 tons and fifty aircraft was proposed. This was also turned down for cost reasons.

OREL would have resulted in a program very similar to the aircraft carriers available to the U.S. Navy. While the project never saw fruition, it later resulted in the abortive Ulyanovsk program. The ship class was codenamed after the Eagle (Орёл), as all major Soviet ship classes were named after birds (see Russian ship naming conventions); the actual projected name of the class is not known.