Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: John in Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio
Speaker 1: and held the tech are you? It is time for
Speaker 1: a classic tech Stuff episode. This originally published on April eight.
Speaker 1: It is the follow up to last week's classic episode.
Speaker 1: This one is titled How Aircraft Carriers Work, Part two.
Speaker 1: Enjoy the weight of the structural steal alone sixty tons
Speaker 1: just in steel on that ship. That's not including all
Speaker 1: the all the aircraft and the people and all the
Speaker 1: other stuff. The total area of the flight deck, I
Speaker 1: think we said this already four and a half acres,
Speaker 1: the length of the flight deck one thousand nine ft.
Speaker 1: But again, they don't get to use all of that.
Speaker 1: Some of it's for launching, some of it's for recovery. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's it's broken up into different ways. Some of it's
Speaker 1: just storage. The width of the flight deck and it's
Speaker 1: the widest point two hundred and fifty seven ft wide,
Speaker 1: which sounds wide, but then again, you've got planes, you've
Speaker 1: got people. You got the pilot house, that pilot house,
Speaker 1: the island island. That's right. Pilot house where you come
Speaker 1: up with that it sounds like a restaurant. Well you
Speaker 1: you would technically call it that on a boat, but
Speaker 1: this is significantly larger than a boat. I'm going to
Speaker 1: go down to the pilot house for some shrimp. Okay,
Speaker 1: uh oh, this is interesting. The weight of each anchor,
Speaker 1: each anchor thirty tons, and in each each link in
Speaker 1: the section of anchor chain weighs three hundred and sixty pounds.
Speaker 1: Massive a couple of people just to lift a Look.
Speaker 1: Each propeller weighs sixty six thousand, two hundred pounds. Each
Speaker 1: of the rudders weighs four sorry, forty five point five tons. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's amazing. Um, all right, how about the storage capacity
Speaker 1: for aviation fuel, which we would assume would be essential
Speaker 1: for something like that. Because they're not making power from
Speaker 1: the the the reactor for the planes, they still have
Speaker 1: to carry fuel for the actual three point three million
Speaker 1: gallons is what they carry? That sure is? I mean
Speaker 1: think about that next time you go to the Georgia
Speaker 1: Aquarium and you've got that one million gallon tank. Okay,
Speaker 1: number of telephones on board. We're getting into some of
Speaker 1: the funner stuff. Um, funner, more fun the most fun,
Speaker 1: the most fun stuff, it's the bestest stuff is coming up.
Speaker 1: The number of telephones on board twenty five hundred telephones.
Speaker 1: The number of televisions on board three thousand. What are
Speaker 1: they doing watching TV? They got a lot of They
Speaker 1: got a ship to run. Now you are occasionally allowed
Speaker 1: a little downtime, and maybe I'm being harsh, I don't know. Anyways,
Speaker 1: you'd be quite the quartermaster. Thousands, a thousand miles of
Speaker 1: electrical cable is on board when each one of these ships. Um,
Speaker 1: let's see, let's go down to some of the other stuff. Um.
Speaker 1: Number of dentists on board five ye five dentists. So
Speaker 1: you gotta have that if you have thousands of people
Speaker 1: actually do have dental offices aboard. They carry enough food
Speaker 1: to feed six thousand people for seventy days. That's that's
Speaker 1: that's eighteen thousand meals a day. Yes, that's right, because
Speaker 1: you're multiplied by three eight thousand meals, and you're right,
Speaker 1: that's exactly right. So the amount of mail that's processes
Speaker 1: on board from you know, from the post office, one
Speaker 1: million pounds of mail goes to all these people throughout
Speaker 1: the throughout the year. Um, let's see number of medical
Speaker 1: doctors on board, and this is actually surprisingly low six
Speaker 1: six considering yeah that you're that's like one per thousand.
Speaker 1: That's that's a pretty low, right, How about just two more?
Speaker 1: To wrap it up here, the number of haircuts that
Speaker 1: they that they give every week fifteen hundred a week.
Speaker 1: But there's only one barbershop, so that that that dramatic
Speaker 1: to be fair, Come on, haircut aboard a navy vessel
Speaker 1: often or involves a pair of electric clippers and not much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that wasn't as fun as I thought it was, No, no, no.
Speaker 1: But but another another one to think about is that
Speaker 1: you've got about people who are part of the air
Speaker 1: wing aboard the vessel. Now, the air wing, that's all
Speaker 1: the people necessary for the flying and main main maintaining
Speaker 1: of aircraft. So it's not just the pilots, it's also
Speaker 1: the crew that that the flight cruise, the maintenance cruise,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Then you've got another three thousand
Speaker 1: who are the ship's company. They're the ones who keep
Speaker 1: the ship running and have their own jobs aboard there,
Speaker 1: including people who are super secret like the people who
Speaker 1: maintain the nuclear reactors, who even aboard ships end up
Speaker 1: being almost legendary because you don't necessarily know who it
Speaker 1: is who works on that duty. That it's not always
Speaker 1: something that is common knowledge aboard ship. There's a there's
Speaker 1: an amazing and truly amazing ten hour documentary series that
Speaker 1: PBS did called Carry, where they follow a bunch of
Speaker 1: sailors aboard the U s S. Nimits, the lead ship
Speaker 1: of the Nimitz class aircraft carrier, and they talk about
Speaker 1: their roles aboard the ship, their decisions of going into
Speaker 1: the Navy, when it's like living aboard this kind of thing.
Speaker 1: It follows a deployment during the wars in Afghanistan, and
Speaker 1: so it actually follows these people for a really long
Speaker 1: time and it's fascinating. And one of the things they
Speaker 1: talked about is how, yeah, I don't think I've ever
Speaker 1: met anyone who works in the nuclear reactor area, or
Speaker 1: if they do, they don't. Yeah, they don't say, which
Speaker 1: is kind of interesting. I like that. I like that
Speaker 1: that secretive element too. Yeah. So it's it's really again,
Speaker 1: it's it's a very specific kind of world. And the
Speaker 1: the crew quarters I had referred to the beds, are
Speaker 1: referred to as racks. You have a rack of of
Speaker 1: you know, and the racks are tiny. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you've seen pictures or video of it,
Speaker 1: but they there's barely enough space for you to climb
Speaker 1: in to get into your little bed. And they are
Speaker 1: stacked three to uh to a section, so you've got
Speaker 1: a lower bunk of middle bunk in an upper bunk.
Speaker 1: All of these are, like I said, there's just enough
Speaker 1: clearance for you to climb in essentially. Um. And in fact,
Speaker 1: I watched the video of a guy getting in one
Speaker 1: for the first time and he's like, I'm sure I'm
Speaker 1: going to get better at this. This was the top
Speaker 1: one he did. He have a bunch of like bruises
Speaker 1: on his forehead. Yeah, I had a couple of lumps,
Speaker 1: you know here there uh. And you have like a
Speaker 1: tiny locker and maybe a foot locker to keep your
Speaker 1: belongings in otherwise, you know, and you're just sharing this
Speaker 1: tiny space, and it might be a lot of people
Speaker 1: sharing a relatively small amount of living space, including a
Speaker 1: lot of people sharing one bathroom. I mean, it's well,
Speaker 1: it's no cruise ship. And you know, even even if
Speaker 1: you do go on a cruise ship, oftentimes you'll you'll
Speaker 1: get into your room and you realize like, well, this
Speaker 1: is a pretty small room, but you've got it pretty
Speaker 1: plush compared to the military. It's luxury compared to the military.
Speaker 1: So yeah, really really an amazing piece of technology. Now
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go through a little bit more about the
Speaker 1: the various aircraft classes that exist, the types of aircraft
Speaker 1: carriers that have existed in the United States history, and
Speaker 1: then I think we can conclude by talking a little
Speaker 1: bit about the the Forward class of super carrier that
Speaker 1: is soon to be part of the United States Navy
Speaker 1: and how it has a couple of interesting, interesting new
Speaker 1: technological improvements. UM that might surprise you because it's not
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily it's not that it's bigger. It's not
Speaker 1: that it's not bigger than the nimits really um. And
Speaker 1: it's not that it's necessarily faster, or that it's able
Speaker 1: to carry a significantly larger UH component of aircraft. It's
Speaker 1: more about how it's more efficient and it needs fewer
Speaker 1: people aboard it, which is kind of cool. So, going
Speaker 1: back to the earliest days, the first aircraft carrier that
Speaker 1: the United States had was referred to as a Langley
Speaker 1: class aircraft carrier. It was the USS Langley. If you
Speaker 1: hear something class, that means that the name of the
Speaker 1: class is generally the name of the lead ship of
Speaker 1: that class, and then other ships in that class were
Speaker 1: built as using the first one as a reference point,
Speaker 1: like that's the model, and then all the other ships
Speaker 1: are going to be built based on that, largely because
Speaker 1: manufacturing processes at this stage mean that we can actually
Speaker 1: make copies of stuff. So there might be a dozen
Speaker 1: Langley class ships out there. There could could have been, yeah,
Speaker 1: I understand, But then but the first one was named
Speaker 1: the Langley. Yes, got it. So in this case it's
Speaker 1: a single ship class, meaning that there was only one
Speaker 1: ever made is a bad example in my part, but
Speaker 1: but only because we're talking about the very first one.
Speaker 1: Um it was. It was a commission in nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: two as an aircraft carrier. However, that's not how the
Speaker 1: Langley got got her start, And of course we refer
Speaker 1: to ships as ladies. So she had a previous life
Speaker 1: as a collier, which is a type of bulk cargo ship.
Speaker 1: So she was converted from cargo ship to aircraft carrier.
Speaker 1: She was originally launched as a cargo ship in nineteen thirteen. No, boy,
Speaker 1: she the conversion process began in nineteen twenty lasted two years.
Speaker 1: She was recommission in nineteen twenty two, and she on
Speaker 1: a wooden deck. Right, yeah, she was she She did
Speaker 1: not have all the amenities of a modern aircraft carriers.
Speaker 1: She was slow. She was only capable of traveling at
Speaker 1: fourteen knots, which is less than half of what we're
Speaker 1: talking about with the super carriers these days. I could
Speaker 1: that's a it's a huge problem if you're only going
Speaker 1: fourteen knots because you were not able to generate amount
Speaker 1: of air speed that airplanes would really need to take off.
Speaker 1: So it was not not This is one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why the Langley is the only one in her class.
Speaker 1: Um or was the only one, I should say. Now,
Speaker 1: there was a captain in the Navy who ended up
Speaker 1: taking control of the Langley. Uh He was given her
Speaker 1: command and ended up establishing a lot of the handling
Speaker 1: procedures that became standard operating procedure on aircraft carriers after that.
Speaker 1: His name was Captain Joseph Reeves. He would eventually rise
Speaker 1: to the rank of admiral. Uh so a lot of
Speaker 1: the things that ended up being used every day on
Speaker 1: aircraft carriers. Were that they were established because Reeves put
Speaker 1: those practices into as policy. He said, this is the
Speaker 1: way we're going to do things. Um. Now, the Langley
Speaker 1: was damaged by Japanese dive bombers in nineteen forty two
Speaker 1: and the surrounding US ships were forced to scuttle the Langley,
Speaker 1: so she was sunk by by US forces on purpose. Next,
Speaker 1: we have the Lexington class, named after the USS Lexington
Speaker 1: that was commissioned in nineteen seven. Uh. It was originally
Speaker 1: a battle cruiser, not an aircraft carrier. Strange, so the
Speaker 1: first two were not necessarily they didn't start out life
Speaker 1: as an air rack exactly. Uh. And there were two
Speaker 1: ships in the Lexington class, so really the first three
Speaker 1: aircraft carrier started as something else. Now here's the interesting
Speaker 1: thing about why we converted. We being the United States,
Speaker 1: converted the battle cruiser into an aircraft carrier. So you
Speaker 1: may have heard of things like a disarmament treaties. This
Speaker 1: is not a new concept. This does not just refer
Speaker 1: to the nuclear age. It goes back further back in
Speaker 1: the old days, like the nineteen twenties. The big weapons
Speaker 1: were these giant navy ships, and so there was a
Speaker 1: treaty signed, the Washington Naval Treaty of nineteen twenty two,
Speaker 1: which placed strict limitations on how many warships a nation
Speaker 1: would be allowed by international law to have. If the
Speaker 1: United States built to battle cruisers or actually, i'm sorry, battleships,
Speaker 1: they weren't even they weren't battle cruisers. Now they were
Speaker 1: battle cruisers. So they built two battle cruisers, they would
Speaker 1: go over their limit. However, aircraft carriers at the time
Speaker 1: were not considered really warships. They were considered support. So
Speaker 1: instead of building battle cruisers, they just took the the
Speaker 1: bones of the battle cruisers and converted them into aircraft carriers. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So this was still in the construction phase. It wasn't
Speaker 1: like they they had them out and sailing and then
Speaker 1: converted them. It was all all from the UH at
Speaker 1: the shipyards. UH. The leadership of the class, the Lexington,
Speaker 1: was sunk in nineteen forty two during the Battle of
Speaker 1: the Coral Sea that Scott mentioned. The other was the Saratoga,
Speaker 1: which made it through World War Two. She was heavily
Speaker 1: damaged in a couple of different battles, but she made
Speaker 1: it through and she was later sunk on purpose during
Speaker 1: a test of nuclear weapons. Yeah, yeah, this is interesting. Huh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's when you start you decide, Hey, we're just gonna
Speaker 1: we're gonna park this here boat right off the bikini
Speaker 1: and then we're gonna blow it up. Yeah, but you
Speaker 1: know what, how else are you going to test that?
Speaker 1: How else are you going to figure out how that
Speaker 1: ship is going to stand up to an attack like that?
Speaker 1: As it turns out, it doesn't, but it certainly proved
Speaker 1: it in that case. Yeah, so, very interesting fate for
Speaker 1: those two. Then you have the Ranger class, another single
Speaker 1: ship class of ships. So in other words, it's almost
Speaker 1: funny to call it a class when there's only one,
Speaker 1: but that's what we do. So she was the commission
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty four and deep commission in nine. And
Speaker 1: this is the first ship that was built to be
Speaker 1: an aircraft carrier. Um. She was only seven hundred thirty
Speaker 1: ft long or two two point five meters. I say, oh,
Speaker 1: because that's much shorter than today's super carriers. Had a
Speaker 1: full crew complement of two thousand, four hundred sixty one
Speaker 1: people and uh. She was in the Atlantic Ocean during
Speaker 1: World War two. Because she was too slow to be
Speaker 1: deemed useful for the Pacific theater. And now you said
Speaker 1: seven thirty feet, but that was probably sufficient for prop aircraft.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah. And and again she was built specifically
Speaker 1: with aircraft carrier in mind, so this was not a conversion.
Speaker 1: So she was, you know, designed with those those elements
Speaker 1: in mind. At that point, all we're still talking about
Speaker 1: kind of the straight uh landing takeoff strip that caused
Speaker 1: so many problems early on. Next, we have the York
Speaker 1: Town Class, which was commission in nineteen thirty seven. There
Speaker 1: were three ships built in this class. Of course, the
Speaker 1: lead ship is the York Town. Um. She was sunk
Speaker 1: in nineteen forty two at the Battle of Midway, So
Speaker 1: when we talk about Midway classes, guess what that's named after. Anyway.
Speaker 1: The Hornet was another York Town Class ship. She was
Speaker 1: sunk also in two at the Battle of the Santa
Speaker 1: Cruz Islands. The third ship was the original U S.
Speaker 1: S Enterprise. The original well original in the sense of
Speaker 1: aircraft carriers. Um. Now you know what, I don't think
Speaker 1: until this morning, when you were talking about I don't
Speaker 1: think I knew that there were two USS Enterprises. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so this one is This one was a York Town
Speaker 1: class ship. There would later be an Enterprise class ship
Speaker 1: also known as the U. S. S. Enterprise. So if
Speaker 1: you guys have been watching a lot of Star Trek
Speaker 1: and you get confused about which enterprises which, because there's Enterprise,
Speaker 1: you know, a B, C, D, and then of course
Speaker 1: there's the previous ones. Uh that dates back all the
Speaker 1: way to the Navy days, I mean, and of course
Speaker 1: they named the Enterprise after this particular ship. This was
Speaker 1: the most decorated ship in US Navy history. It's on
Speaker 1: the bottom of the ocean. Well you can't, you know,
Speaker 1: and no one lives forever going through this list. I mean, man,
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of them down there. Yeah. Yeah, Well
Speaker 1: she she actually was. She made it through. She was
Speaker 1: not sunk the way the Yorktown and the Hornet were.
Speaker 1: That's something. She was seven seventy ft long or two
Speaker 1: hunts and had a complement of two thousand, two hundred
Speaker 1: seventeen crew. Next we get to the Wasp class. It's
Speaker 1: another single ship class, only one ever made. She was
Speaker 1: commissioned in nineteen forty but sunk in nineteen forty two
Speaker 1: during the Guadalcanal campaign by a Japanese submarine. She was
Speaker 1: six eight feet long or two hundred ten and she
Speaker 1: carried a crew of two thousand, one hundred sixty seven
Speaker 1: during wartime or around eighteen hundred during peacetime. Now, her
Speaker 1: construction came down to politics. This was one of the
Speaker 1: things I thought was fascinating. So you remember that treaty image.
Speaker 1: In the ninety two treaty, it limited the amount of tonnage.
Speaker 1: The United States was able to dedicate two aircraft carriers,
Speaker 1: but they had fifteen thousand ton tonnage left over after
Speaker 1: every thing else, and they said, well, we don't want
Speaker 1: that to go to waste. Let's build a an aircraft
Speaker 1: carrier that will make up this tonnage that we have
Speaker 1: been allotted. And the Wasp was that ship. That's strange
Speaker 1: because okay, you're talking, you're talking about at ton aircraft carrier. Yeah,
Speaker 1: compared to like the thirty thousand plus sixty yeah, oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it seems like it's so small and
Speaker 1: how how did that even work? It's called a wasp,
Speaker 1: very thin metal. Yeah yeah, And she only lasted two
Speaker 1: years before she was sunk. We'll be back with more
Speaker 1: about aircraft carriers after this quick break. Now, now we
Speaker 1: get into one of the like what was the backbone
Speaker 1: of the United States Navy during World War Two. That's
Speaker 1: the Essex class of aircraft carriers commission in nineteen forty two.
Speaker 1: There was also an extended bowel variation. The bow is
Speaker 1: the front end of the ship. There was an extended
Speaker 1: bow variation that was commissioned in nineteen four. There were
Speaker 1: twenty four ships built in the Essex class. There were
Speaker 1: another eight that had been planned but were canceled before
Speaker 1: they could be built. Uh So this was the most
Speaker 1: plentiful of them. Out of those twenty four, fourteens saw
Speaker 1: combat during World War Two. Not a single one was sunk.
Speaker 1: That's impressive. So all of them made it through World
Speaker 1: War two. Uh. They range because there's an extended vowel version.
Speaker 1: They ranged from about eight hundred twenty feet which is
Speaker 1: almost two to eight feet which is about two hundred
Speaker 1: seventy You know, that kind of makes sense though, because
Speaker 1: we were talking about the role reversal and how you
Speaker 1: know that became the primary player then the aircraft carrier
Speaker 1: was during World War two, so they when they went out,
Speaker 1: you know, these fourteen ships that went out and saw
Speaker 1: saw action. They were surrounded by support ships and they
Speaker 1: were protecting them fear sleep, and that's probably the difference.
Speaker 1: That's probably why all four teen made it through that.
Speaker 1: I mean, clearly the biggest danger you you face there.
Speaker 1: I mean, there are plenty of dangerous lots of them,
Speaker 1: but the biggest one would be submarines because those would
Speaker 1: be the hardest to detect. Now, a lot of the
Speaker 1: aircraft carriers, in fact, all aircraft carriers to my knowledge,
Speaker 1: have anti submarine um UH strategies where they deploy what
Speaker 1: is essentially a decoy that makes a lot of noise,
Speaker 1: so a submarine ends up focusing on that. Torpedoes go
Speaker 1: towards that as opposed to going to the actual aircraft carrier,
Speaker 1: so you don't want to make a lot of noise.
Speaker 1: Then you have Independence Class commission in ninety three. This
Speaker 1: was another conversion. These were light aircraft carriers. They were
Speaker 1: conversions of Cleveland class light cruisers. So if you look
Speaker 1: at the list of Independence class ships, you'll see that
Speaker 1: they have multiple names because they had already had a
Speaker 1: life as a light cruiser but now had been converted
Speaker 1: into aircraft carrier. And they got named a new name
Speaker 1: in that case. Yeah, that's weird because sailors generally think
Speaker 1: that it's bad luck to rename a ship points called
Speaker 1: it something, But I guess it was technically a different
Speaker 1: ship by then. Anyway, cruisers are small to medium sized warships.
Speaker 1: They usually act as fleet support. And World War two,
Speaker 1: you the United States had need of a lot more
Speaker 1: aircraft carriers, but they are expensive, they take a lot
Speaker 1: of time to make, so there weren't a whole lot
Speaker 1: of options. The best option was to convert stuff that
Speaker 1: they already had into aircraft carriers rather than have to
Speaker 1: build new ones. Makes sense, Yeah, it makes sense. Um,
Speaker 1: So nine ships were converted ultimately in this way. Now,
Speaker 1: next we have the Midway class, which was commissioned in
Speaker 1: There were three of these. They were longer than the
Speaker 1: Essex class. The leadership of the class. The Midway remained
Speaker 1: in service until nineteen two too. Not a bad not
Speaker 1: a bad return on investment is a surprisingly long run. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you look at the aircraft that the
Speaker 1: United States has depended upon, some of those aircraft have
Speaker 1: been in service for a really long time. But this
Speaker 1: is this is truly you know, impressive to me, and
Speaker 1: they might have changed a little bit between nine. They
Speaker 1: probably got a couple of refits where they changed changed up.
Speaker 1: Probably you know where Hey, you finally got the compass
Speaker 1: to stop wobbling. Um. Yeah, So the last action that
Speaker 1: the Midway saw was an Operation Desert Storm. She took
Speaker 1: took part in that, and then, uh, she is now
Speaker 1: a museum in San Diego, California, which is where I
Speaker 1: got to. Is the case with with several of these Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of these aircraft carriers are a lot and
Speaker 1: I'm not mentioning all of them by name because obviously
Speaker 1: that would We're gonna be running super long if I
Speaker 1: did that. But a lot of them are now museums
Speaker 1: in various local Asians. Some of them are in the
Speaker 1: process of being converted into museums for some places. Um,
Speaker 1: it's a great use for them. Yeah, it's really it's
Speaker 1: fascinating to really get an actual look at what the
Speaker 1: living conditions are like, to see these racks and see
Speaker 1: how tiny those bunks are, and just think, like anyone
Speaker 1: who hasn't served time on board a ship, uh you know,
Speaker 1: I had had had any service board a ship like that.
Speaker 1: It really kind of gives you a new appreciation for
Speaker 1: the sacrifice that the men and women who choose to
Speaker 1: do that. You know what they go through, no doubt. Um. Next,
Speaker 1: we've got the Saipan class, which was commission in nineteen
Speaker 1: forty six. There were only two ships built in that class.
Speaker 1: They were shorter four point six ft long two eight
Speaker 1: meters or so, and they carried a complement of seventeen hundred.
Speaker 1: They were designed to carry forty two aircraft, including twelve bombers.
Speaker 1: They had a relatively short service life because, uh well
Speaker 1: they just weren't as useful once we started getting the
Speaker 1: development of the jet engine planes right. They were far
Speaker 1: too short for that. So they were converted into command
Speaker 1: and communication ships in the nineteen fifties. Um So that
Speaker 1: meant that we needed to have a new class of
Speaker 1: ship designed specifically to accommodate jet fighters. And here we arrive.
Speaker 1: It's like the modern era. Yeah, this is where we're
Speaker 1: making that that. You know, we're still not quite the
Speaker 1: nuclear era, but we're at the super carrier era. This
Speaker 1: is where we arrive at the aircraft carrier. That wasn't
Speaker 1: the big one that that started but wasn't completed. The
Speaker 1: United States class the USS United States didn't. They only
Speaker 1: work on the beginning production of this thing for just
Speaker 1: a few days before it was canceled. They had laid
Speaker 1: the keel down. Depending upon the the account you read,
Speaker 1: it's between five and nine days. Like the keel was
Speaker 1: laid out, and within within a week or so it
Speaker 1: was canceled. And uh. It was supposed to be a
Speaker 1: ship that would be one thousand ninety ft long or so.
Speaker 1: This would have been the longest aircraft carrier up to
Speaker 1: that point. Um she was supposed to be able to
Speaker 1: carry twelve to eighteen heavy bombers and fifty four jet fighters.
Speaker 1: Now she was canceled by order of the Secretary of
Speaker 1: Defense Lewis A. Johnson, who sided with the Air Force
Speaker 1: in an argument that was going on between the Air
Speaker 1: Force and the Navy. The Air Force said, listen, we're
Speaker 1: in the nuclear age, and the best investment is for
Speaker 1: us to build lots and lots of long range bombers
Speaker 1: that can fly out over a target drop a nuclear weapon.
Speaker 1: This is gonna be to terrence will never have a
Speaker 1: war again. And Johnson said, this is the way I
Speaker 1: want to go, and it led to what was called
Speaker 1: the Revolt of the admirals. So you had these admirals
Speaker 1: in the Navy who all said, no, aircraft carriers are
Speaker 1: going to still be important. We're going to need a
Speaker 1: place that we can, uh, we can maneuver into different
Speaker 1: parts of the world and use as a base of
Speaker 1: operations for our our air strategy, for our own floating island. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you had the Navy arguing that we still needed
Speaker 1: to have aircraft carriers and the Air Force arguing that no,
Speaker 1: we did not. Then a little conflict broke out, the
Speaker 1: Korean War, and the Korean War illustrated that nuclear deterrents
Speaker 1: would not work in every kind of outbreak of violence,
Speaker 1: and the United States believed that it had a real
Speaker 1: stake in the outcome of the Korean War. A fear
Speaker 1: of the spread of communism was a large part of this.
Speaker 1: It was all happening as the Cold War is raging,
Speaker 1: and the Navy said, see, we need aircraft carriers, and
Speaker 1: so back to building aircraft carriers. The Navy went, now't
Speaker 1: this something, I mean the research and development. I don't
Speaker 1: know how long that took before, you know, prior to
Speaker 1: to the start of the build, but to get nine
Speaker 1: or ten days or five days or whatever into the
Speaker 1: build and then just decided to quit. That's remarkable. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly what was Yeah, I mean it's we're talking like
Speaker 1: a hundred million dollars at that point. Then we get
Speaker 1: the Forestal class. This is the one that had the
Speaker 1: the famous fire, the USS forest All. That was commissioned
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty five. There were four of them built
Speaker 1: um and it was the first actual aircraft carriers to
Speaker 1: be designated as super carriers. All four were decommissioned in
Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties, and they were one thousand seventy ft
Speaker 1: long about three and they still used steam turbines for
Speaker 1: propulsion like they steam boilers. They didn't have nuclear reactors yet.
Speaker 1: The crew compliment for that was four thousand three. So
Speaker 1: we're getting bigger. Someone down there shoveling colon. Yeah, a
Speaker 1: lot of them actually. Yeah, you know, throw another log
Speaker 1: on the fire. We need to go a little faster,
Speaker 1: it's what they're doing. More steam, more steam. Next, we
Speaker 1: had the Kittie Hawk class now Kitty Hawk obviously nay
Speaker 1: named after the test flights that the Wright brothers did
Speaker 1: at Kitty Hawk. Uh. That was commission in nineteen sixty one.
Speaker 1: There were three ships built in that class, the Kitty Hawk,
Speaker 1: the Constellation, and the America. UH and they also used
Speaker 1: steam turbines. Then we get to the Enterprise class and
Speaker 1: the next USS Enterprise UH commission on November nineteen sixty one.
Speaker 1: And UH, the USS Enterprise is the only ship in
Speaker 1: this class there They've never built any other ones. UH.
Speaker 1: It was one thousand, one hundred one ft long or
Speaker 1: one thousand hundred feet two inches long three hundred thirty
Speaker 1: five point six four meters um. It's flight deck was
Speaker 1: two d fifty two feet wide or seventy five point
Speaker 1: six meters. It displaced eighty nine thousand, six hundred tons
Speaker 1: with a full load. Top speed was more than thirty knots.
Speaker 1: Had more than three thousand, three hundred fifty members of
Speaker 1: the ship's company and another two thousand, four hundred eighty
Speaker 1: as the air wing crew. They had a total of
Speaker 1: five thousand, eight hundred thirty people aboard this thing. That's
Speaker 1: a huge crew, huge crew. UH. It's armament included anti
Speaker 1: ship missile defense systems and anti aircraft weapons, and it
Speaker 1: could hold more than sixty aircraft. UH. And it's to
Speaker 1: be decommissioned this year. This year so this is one
Speaker 1: that's probably going to end up being a museum someplace,
Speaker 1: I would hope. So, yeah, and I hope that they
Speaker 1: hang up pictures from Star Trek everywhere. All Right, we'll
Speaker 1: be wrapping up the subject of aircraft carriers in just
Speaker 1: a moment after this quick break. Next we have the
Speaker 1: Kennedy class. Uh. This is a subclass of the Kittie
Speaker 1: Hawk class of aircraft carriers. It was commission there's only
Speaker 1: one of them, or there was only one of them,
Speaker 1: the John F. Kennedy, and it was decommissioned in two
Speaker 1: thousand seven, quite as long as the Enterprise class, but
Speaker 1: they had a similar propulsion system, which means, you know,
Speaker 1: the Enterprise being one that was the first one to
Speaker 1: have nuclear reactors for propulsion. The Kennedy class also had it,
Speaker 1: so unlike the Kittie Hawk class, this is why it's
Speaker 1: a subclass, right. It didn't have the steam boilers like
Speaker 1: Kitty Hawk did. It had nuclear reactors, So that's why
Speaker 1: it's considered a subclass. Unto itself, it could carry more
Speaker 1: than eighty aircraft, but it was decommissioned because it was
Speaker 1: also the most expensive ship to maintain in the fleet
Speaker 1: and it was due for a major overhaul, and budget
Speaker 1: cuts said that that was not gonna happen, so they
Speaker 1: decommissioned it. Yeah, so instead they built the Nimitz class,
Speaker 1: and this is what we're using today, the largest warship
Speaker 1: on the seas right now. It's named after World War
Speaker 1: Two Pacifically Commander Chester W. Nimitz, and the Nimits Class
Speaker 1: was commissioned on May third, nineteen sev just a short
Speaker 1: time before I was blinked nineteen seventy five. And we've
Speaker 1: gone all the way through to two thousand and fifteen
Speaker 1: or two sixteen really before we come to the next
Speaker 1: version of class or class of supercarrier, which is the class. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So she's been in this class of ships has been
Speaker 1: in service for for more than four decades. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a long time. The Navy has ten Nimits Class aircraft carriers.
Speaker 1: They are one thousand, ninety two ft long, three thirty
Speaker 1: two point eight five and one at thirty four at
Speaker 1: the beam that's fours. That's that's at the bottom of
Speaker 1: the ship. So here's the thing. The other thing about
Speaker 1: aircraft carriers is they kind of had this thing where
Speaker 1: they're narrow at the bottom and they kind of flare
Speaker 1: out with wise at the top, and obviously you need
Speaker 1: to have a lot of surface area for your flight deck.
Speaker 1: That's another element of them. You know, it's interesting. I
Speaker 1: mean we've got ten supercarriers. That's pretty cool. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it is really cool. Um, the ship's company is between
Speaker 1: three thousand and thirty two hundred uh crew members plus
Speaker 1: pilots and crew for the air wing, plus five hundred staff.
Speaker 1: So your total is between five thousand and five thousand,
Speaker 1: two hundred people per super carrier. So it's a lot
Speaker 1: of folks on there. That is I mean the logistics
Speaker 1: of of maintaining everything that you have to do. I
Speaker 1: mean we've I know we've talked about it, but even
Speaker 1: the mail service, the sewage system, uh, fresh food or
Speaker 1: fresh food and water, um, you know, all of this stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, the barbershop, the dentist, the doctor is all
Speaker 1: that coordinating everything has just got to be an incredible undertake. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's that's why you have to have this
Speaker 1: huge number of staff aboard. I mean you sit there
Speaker 1: and think, like, what are they doing while they're doing
Speaker 1: They're making sure everything runs smoothly. They have to. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's a military operation and everybody is there
Speaker 1: for a specific purpose. That's the other thing is that
Speaker 1: there's six thousand people on board, roughly six thousands that
Speaker 1: have a specific job that they're doing. It's not like
Speaker 1: a cruise ship where you go on and you know,
Speaker 1: more than half the people are there just to have
Speaker 1: a good time and relax. The other half are there
Speaker 1: to work. You're not gonna find a lot of people
Speaker 1: having a good time aboard an aircraft carrier. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe they only I get a little little like basketball
Speaker 1: in or something occasionally. Yeah, sure, But but the thing
Speaker 1: is they've all got a job. I mean, every single
Speaker 1: one of them. So it's it's it's just a different
Speaker 1: way to look at things. Yeah, and um, and you
Speaker 1: might you know, we haven't talked a lot about the
Speaker 1: defense systems aboard aircraft carriers, largely because their main their
Speaker 1: main weapon are the aircraft, right, but they do have
Speaker 1: various uh defense systems aboard them. With the limits you're
Speaker 1: talking about C Sparrow missile system, which is an anti
Speaker 1: aircraft and anti missile weapon and also has the foalanx
Speaker 1: c I WS defense system to protect against anti ship missiles.
Speaker 1: It's essentially an automated twenty millimeter gabling gun that tracks
Speaker 1: and shoots down incoming missiles. Yeah. That's watching videos of
Speaker 1: this thing working is terrifying. Yeah. And also these this
Speaker 1: serviced air missiles that use radar seeking UH signals to
Speaker 1: phone in on whatever they're bouncing the signals off of.
Speaker 1: So that is another cool thing to watch. I mean
Speaker 1: to watch the watch the missiles reaching their target based
Speaker 1: on radar. And they also have a rolling air frame
Speaker 1: missile mounts which can launch surface to air missiles, which
Speaker 1: is another anti ship cruise missile defense system. So in
Speaker 1: other words, if an incoming missiles coming towards the aircraft carrier,
Speaker 1: you can launch one of these to try and UH
Speaker 1: and and destroy the missile hits. And then you already
Speaker 1: talked about the things that they call the nixies, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the for the anti submarine. Yeah. What a cool
Speaker 1: idea that they deploy decoys behind the ship in order
Speaker 1: to draw in the torpedo file. Very cool. I think
Speaker 1: of it kind of like flak for aircraft, where you're
Speaker 1: trying to make sure by by by jettisoning, jettison ng
Speaker 1: uh lots of stuff that a missile could mistake for
Speaker 1: the aircraft that you can escape without being being hit
Speaker 1: by the weapon. Clever. So now we're finally at what
Speaker 1: is coming up next. So the Nimitz class is the
Speaker 1: current aircraft carrier the United States Navy depends upon. The
Speaker 1: next is the Ford class. As we mentioned, it's the
Speaker 1: same length more or is you know, essentially the same
Speaker 1: size as the Nimitz class, but it has a wider
Speaker 1: flight deck. Uh, it's four ft wider. It's got two
Speaker 1: or fifty six ft wide or seventy eight, and has
Speaker 1: two nuclear reactors to provide the propulsion power and electricity.
Speaker 1: Has same general top speed as the limits more or less. Again,
Speaker 1: the Navy doesn't really want to show, uh. But the
Speaker 1: systems aboard the Ford require fewer personnel. So the total
Speaker 1: crew of a Forward class ship, remember limits is five
Speaker 1: thousand to five thousand, two hundred Forward class four thousand,
Speaker 1: five hundred thirty nine. How did they cut the crew down?
Speaker 1: It's it's incredible that they have streamlined system so that
Speaker 1: it requires fewer people to maintain and oversee. Uh. And
Speaker 1: it can also hold more aircraft than the Nimitz class vessel,
Speaker 1: more than seventy five of them. Similar armament to limits. Um,
Speaker 1: and it has some advance and aircraft launches. Uh, and
Speaker 1: one particular that we need to mention. This is how
Speaker 1: we're going to conclude. We're gonna talk about the difference.
Speaker 1: So we had talked about the steam catapults earlier. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the the the Ford class is changing. We're finally getting
Speaker 1: away from these steam powered pistons that launch aircraft. They're
Speaker 1: switching to an electro magnetic aircraft launch system also known
Speaker 1: as EMLS. I like this idea. It's a really cool idea.
Speaker 1: I gotta say that. You know, my first my initial
Speaker 1: thought of this was are they going to be able
Speaker 1: to shorten the decks? Are they're gonna be able to
Speaker 1: make smaller aircraft carriers? But but then I thought, well,
Speaker 1: they still need to store the aircraft. It's still gonna
Speaker 1: need a massive ship. Um, it's not gonna get dramatically smaller.
Speaker 1: But they might be able to shorten the length of
Speaker 1: the takeoff area where they might be able to provide
Speaker 1: more runaways, more takeoff areas, because there's some that have
Speaker 1: as many as they can launch three or four airplanes. Actually,
Speaker 1: you know what, the most I've ever seen launched at
Speaker 1: one time is three simultaneously, but yeah, you could have
Speaker 1: like four or five catapult areas, and the emails ones
Speaker 1: can reset much faster than the steam ones. Within forty
Speaker 1: five seconds they can reset to be able to launch
Speaker 1: another aircraft. Now, it's probably gonna take longer than forty
Speaker 1: five seconds for you to get the next aircraft hooked
Speaker 1: up and ready to go, but that's how long the
Speaker 1: system requires before it can launch again. So it's very fast.
Speaker 1: There's some downsides I'll get to it in the second,
Speaker 1: but the general way this works is that it works
Speaker 1: on the basic principles of magnetism, right where uh like,
Speaker 1: polls on the magnet repel and opposite poles attract. So
Speaker 1: remember that shuttle we talked about with the steam powered one,
Speaker 1: same sort of thing. You've got a shuttle there, and
Speaker 1: you have a leading edge the front side of the shuttle,
Speaker 1: the part that the toebar is gonna connect to, and
Speaker 1: then you have the back edge of the shuttle, and
Speaker 1: you've got these two rails that are on either side
Speaker 1: of the shuttle, just like the pistons would be on
Speaker 1: the steam powered one, but instead of using steam, you're
Speaker 1: using electricity to generate magnetic fields. And you are pulling
Speaker 1: the shuttle in the front, you're creating an opposite charge,
Speaker 1: so it attracts the front of the shuttle as it
Speaker 1: starts to you know, it wants to move toward that
Speaker 1: opposite it's going to slam into the other end. And
Speaker 1: then you use the same charge on the back to
Speaker 1: push the shells, so you're pulling and pushing it at
Speaker 1: the same time. And by changing, by fluctuating this magnetic
Speaker 1: field at a particular speed down the length of these rails,
Speaker 1: you propel the shuttle very very quickly down the rails. Now,
Speaker 1: the power of that push is dependent on a couple
Speaker 1: of different things. The length of the rails, which in
Speaker 1: this case are about three feet in length, and the
Speaker 1: amount of current you're putting through it means you've got
Speaker 1: to put a lot of current. We're talking about a
Speaker 1: lot of electricity, a huge amount. We're talking one hundred
Speaker 1: million watts per launch, which you sound like dr Evil.
Speaker 1: One hundred million what's doing the pinky thing? Just in
Speaker 1: case you guys can't see. Also, that's the same amount
Speaker 1: of electricity a small town would use in that same
Speaker 1: amount of time. So every time your launch, you're using
Speaker 1: within that forty five seconds of of launch and recovery.
Speaker 1: You're using essentially the same amount of electricity a town
Speaker 1: would use in that. But let me tell you something,
Speaker 1: who cares Because you've got a nuclear reactor. You're creating
Speaker 1: it yourself. You're using what you create. It's not like
Speaker 1: you're you're taking it from somebody else to use it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they don't have an extension cord leading all or I
Speaker 1: don't mean to trivialize it right now what I mean,
Speaker 1: but I mean it's interesting and I wonder how many Okay,
Speaker 1: I wonder what safety aspects this brings out? Our safety
Speaker 1: concerns that brings up for crew members working on the deck. Well,
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of crew members that each have
Speaker 1: their own job and they're you know, they got their
Speaker 1: head down to what they're supposed to be doing. There's
Speaker 1: gonna be brand new procedures for this, no doubt. Sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it requires a smaller crew than the steam powered
Speaker 1: version does. But obviously that crew does need to be
Speaker 1: alert because if you're in the wrong place at the
Speaker 1: wrong time, I mean, when those jet engines, uh fire up.
Speaker 1: I read I read a story about a guy aboard
Speaker 1: an aircraft carrier who got sucked into the intake but
Speaker 1: did not get sucked into the actual jet engine itself.
Speaker 1: He suffered injuries, but they were not not critical injuries
Speaker 1: because he didn't get pulled all the way into the engine.
Speaker 1: He was just stuck in a terribly uncomfortable position right
Speaker 1: at the very entrance of it. But that's a real concern,
Speaker 1: you know, And that's going to be a concern whether
Speaker 1: it's a steam powered one or electromagnetic because because again,
Speaker 1: the pilot is still going to have to power up
Speaker 1: full throttle so that they can take off properly. Okay,
Speaker 1: I was getting I was getting more to the point of,
Speaker 1: you know, somebody whose job it is to to hook
Speaker 1: up the shuttle to the to the the landing gear,
Speaker 1: and if they mistakenly touch you know, I don't touch
Speaker 1: the metal on the plane and the metal on the
Speaker 1: on the deck here at the same time. Um I
Speaker 1: can I understand. But there's also there's also huge dangers
Speaker 1: with the steam powered Yeah. Well, I mean you're talking
Speaker 1: about a massive amount of steam under huge pressure. Something's
Speaker 1: going to throw a plane off of a ship. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be it's gonna be dangerous no matter what. Right.
Speaker 1: So this has been one of those things that some
Speaker 1: people have claimed has held up the development of the
Speaker 1: Ford Supercarrier because obviously, like we're saying, you need to
Speaker 1: make sure the system is going to work, it's going
Speaker 1: to replace something that already exists. So there's some who
Speaker 1: would argue, well, why are you replacing something that has
Speaker 1: been proven to work, And the answer is that, well,
Speaker 1: this system could potentially take up much less space. You
Speaker 1: still have to have a massive amount space just for
Speaker 1: the power generator to send the electricity to the rails,
Speaker 1: but it's still going to be smaller than the steam
Speaker 1: uh pistons that you would be using, at least directly
Speaker 1: under the deck um and uh you know it uses
Speaker 1: again a mall or crew, so you don't need to
Speaker 1: have as many people a border aircraft carrier. Military is
Speaker 1: gonna like that. Yeah, so uh, you know, not the
Speaker 1: most electrically uh the efficient device maybe, but still really fascinating. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe I should clarify that military budget people are gonna
Speaker 1: but the but the thing is, I still wonder, I
Speaker 1: wonder if it's going to be any faster than the
Speaker 1: steam system, or if it's going to be more capable
Speaker 1: than the steam system as far as you know the
Speaker 1: launch distance, the launch time, because we said that it
Speaker 1: launches a plane in like in two seconds and it's
Speaker 1: going a hundred and sixty five miles per hour when
Speaker 1: it at the end of that of that travel, well,
Speaker 1: I mean it is the difference between changing the electric
Speaker 1: current along the rail versus the mechanical action of a
Speaker 1: piston being pushed forward. So I guess you're going you're
Speaker 1: going one hundred and sixty five miles per hour instantly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: instead could approaching that and then at launch your acceleration
Speaker 1: could be even faster. I would imagine, I mean I
Speaker 1: I I also imagine that, they said it. So it's
Speaker 1: not that because obviously we don't want to cause injury
Speaker 1: to the pilot or damage the vehicle. But yeah, a
Speaker 1: that that sort of speed. So uh, this was really
Speaker 1: a lot of fun to talk about, and um, you know,
Speaker 1: when we first started, I wasn't sure if we were
Speaker 1: going to get two episodes out of it, but we
Speaker 1: sure did. Yeah, yeah, we did, I can tell already.
Speaker 1: So here here's another peak behind the curtain where you
Speaker 1: new listeners out there. Sometimes we don't know how long
Speaker 1: an episode is going to be and we don't know
Speaker 1: how um you know, you know whether or not something's
Speaker 1: gonna be one part or two parts. And the funny
Speaker 1: thing is you've already listened to part one and this
Speaker 1: is the end of part two. But we didn't know
Speaker 1: it was going to be in the part two until
Speaker 1: I looked down at Scott's timing device and saw that
Speaker 1: we're well over an hour and a half. If we
Speaker 1: wanted to release this as one episode, you were giving
Speaker 1: them all the secrets, I know, right well, I mean,
Speaker 1: come on, we just had tech Stuff seven episode, so
Speaker 1: I feel like I feel like we've had a few moments,
Speaker 1: me and the listeners probably, so, Scott, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for joining me for these two episodes. Are really appreciated.
Speaker 1: You know what. Once again, I had a lot of
Speaker 1: fun talking about this. You know way more about aircraft
Speaker 1: carriers than I do, obviously, but I had a great
Speaker 1: time and it's always a good conversation. So thank you
Speaker 1: for inviting me, and I'd gladly do it again. Fantastic
Speaker 1: and next time I swear I'll pick something car related.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed that classic episode about how aircraft
Speaker 1: carriers work. Will be back with an all new, old
Speaker 1: episode next week. I think I'm trying to parse that.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I need more coffee. If you have
Speaker 1: suggestions for topics I should cover on future episodes of
Speaker 1: tech Stuff, please reach out to me on Twitter. The
Speaker 1: handle for the show is tech Stuff H s W
Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff
Speaker 1: is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from
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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows