WEBVTT - How Aircraft Carriers Work: Part One 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:11.840 Get in touch with technology with text stuff from Hey 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:14.880 there and welcome to Text Stuff. I am your host 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:18.280 extordanaire Jonathan Strickland and with me in the studio today. 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:22.800 Is you know him? You love him? Scott Benjamin? Oh, 0:00:22.840 --> 0:00:26.320 they do? Really, I get notes people love when you're 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:29.360 on the show. That's impressive. Yeah, yeah, people? What that 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:31.960 my that my listeners can read and write? Now? No, no, no, 0:00:32.000 --> 0:00:34.479 I wasn't saying that. It was just you never know 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:37.440 these things. That's true. That's true. Yeah. You you come 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:40.199 on as a guest onto my show and you are 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:43.519 not pretty to the community case that come into the 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:46.120 tech stuff world. I should let you know more frequently 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:48.159 that people do enjoy when you're on. Well, that's nice. 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:50.080 I appreciate it, and I have a great time when 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:52.559 I'm here. So I'm glad to be back. And this 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:54.680 is a topic that I'm I'm pretty excited about talking 0:00:54.680 --> 0:00:57.720 about today. Yeah. I picked something that was outside of 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:02.760 our our our respective wheelhouses a little bit. Aircraft carriers 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:05.600 and super carriers. And this this was something that came 0:01:05.640 --> 0:01:10.160 about because many ages ago, when I was first making 0:01:10.240 --> 0:01:13.080 up the topic list of potential topics for tech Stuff. 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:15.560 One of the news items at the time was about 0:01:15.680 --> 0:01:19.600 the next generation of super carriers here in the United States, 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:23.720 the Ford class aircraft carrier. So we're gonna be talking 0:01:23.720 --> 0:01:27.360 a lot about the current state of the art, which 0:01:27.400 --> 0:01:30.800 is the Nimmits class aircraft carrier. We'll talk about the 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:34.679 next generation, we'll talk about previous generations. But to start 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:39.520 it all off, I wanted to explain how amazing, how 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:48.200 old this this idea is. It actually predates controlled flight. Yes, right, 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:50.040 you know, I don't know a whole lot about this, 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:52.240 because we did. We were digging into aircraft carriers and 0:01:52.320 --> 0:01:54.080 just kind of as a side note of some some 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:56.840 article that I was reading, it had mentioned that in 0:01:56.960 --> 0:02:01.920 the late nineteenth century they were using ships to launch 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:07.840 manned balloons, right for reconnaissance, uh missions and things like that. 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:09.880 It was always it was always about reconnaissance, and it 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:14.320 was about monitoring the enemy, right, because in the nineteenth century, 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:18.320 the navies around the world, we're relying heavily upon battleship 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:23.679 class dreadnoughts, these enormous ships with heavy weaponry on them 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:27.520 that would batter one another. That was how naval battles 0:02:27.520 --> 0:02:31.400 were decided back in the late nineteenth and early twentieth 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:35.640 centuries and so much so that any idea, like any 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:38.919 thought of using air support was mainly just to get 0:02:38.960 --> 0:02:41.840 a look around and see where the enemy was. Like 0:02:41.880 --> 0:02:44.880 that was the only purpose, right. They were not thought 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:47.920 of as this would be, We're gonna weaponize balloons. It 0:02:47.960 --> 0:02:50.680 was more like, we need eyes in the sky so 0:02:50.720 --> 0:02:52.680 that we know where the enemy might be. Well, even 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:55.519 during the American Civil War they use balloons, uh, they would. 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:58.639 They would flow a balloon from their camp to check 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:00.400 out what the enemy was doing, you know, on the 0:03:00.400 --> 0:03:02.760 other side of the hill, and then bring it back down. 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:05.200 But then the intent was never to to fire from 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:06.839 up there anything. It was just to keep an eye 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:09.480 on the on the enemy exactly exactly. And that's the 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:12.639 same thing is true with the earliest days of aircraft 0:03:12.639 --> 0:03:15.240 carriers in the in the respect and the way we 0:03:15.280 --> 0:03:18.520 think of them now. What surprised me was that it 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:21.640 did not take long at all from the moment that 0:03:21.720 --> 0:03:25.720 we have controlled flight that is a heavier than air 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:29.760 aircraft that can fly through the control of a human being, 0:03:30.400 --> 0:03:34.679 and the first attempts at making an aircraft carrier. So 0:03:36.240 --> 0:03:40.600 I know that there is some disagreement about who was 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:44.360 truly responsible for the first heavier than air aircraft. We're 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:47.640 gonna go with the right brothers for this one. And 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:53.320 they flew at Kittie Hawk in nineteen o three. It 0:03:53.360 --> 0:03:58.280 took less than a decade before the United States military 0:03:58.400 --> 0:04:01.400 started saying, may maybe we can launch one of these 0:04:01.400 --> 0:04:04.680 suckers from a boat. Yeah, not a bad idea. Uh yeah, 0:04:04.880 --> 0:04:06.600 I mean that's that's always the kind of the way 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:09.840 it goes right with the militator's thinking. They're thinking, well, 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:12.880 you know what, this could be a devastating machine of war. 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:15.520 Exactly where can we make this work for us? So 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:18.320 that's that's exactly what they did. They said, well, let's, uh, 0:04:18.440 --> 0:04:20.240 let's try to figure out a way to make it. Well, 0:04:20.279 --> 0:04:23.880 they need a nice big takeoff and landing area, but 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:25.760 well there's no way really to do that on a 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:28.000 boat unless we build something that's maybe made out of 0:04:28.000 --> 0:04:30.440 wood that's a huge flat deck. Let's try that. And 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:33.599 they did and it worked. Yeah, it was It was crazy. 0:04:33.640 --> 0:04:37.800 They built They built a temporary wooden deck on top 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:41.760 of the USS Birmingham in nineteen ten. This was truly 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:45.000 just an experiment, right, it was just a proof of concept, 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:50.839 and they found a brave man, or some might say lunatic, 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:56.520 to attempt to fly a tiny biplane, a Curtis biplane 0:04:56.640 --> 0:05:01.760 fifty horsepower, fifty horsepower, a fifty hor power biplane. Can 0:05:01.800 --> 0:05:06.960 you imagine you're rolling down this wooden this wooden platform 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:10.000 that's built on top of a battleship. It's the battleship 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:12.360 was not meant to do this right, it was they 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:14.720 had to shore up all this area to create a 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:19.280 a wooden structure for you to roll across, not necessarily 0:05:19.320 --> 0:05:21.400 knowing if you would be able to reach the right 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:23.680 speed to be able to take off, or if you 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:27.080 would just plunge off the end into the ocean. Yeah, yeah, 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:29.240 this is a this is a scary prospect having for 0:05:29.279 --> 0:05:31.120 this guy. I mean, his name is he was actually 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:35.520 a civilian pilot. His name was Eugene Burton Eli And uh, 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:37.640 this is so strange the way this is written. And 0:05:37.760 --> 0:05:39.600 I'll read it the way it's written, and then I'll 0:05:39.600 --> 0:05:43.800 explain because it sounds so weird. It says on November fourteen, 0:05:44.320 --> 0:05:48.680 a twenty four year old civilian, civilian pilot, again Eugene, 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:51.640 took off in a fifty horsepower Curtis plane from the 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:54.240 bow of the Birmingham, which is a you know, wooden 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:57.880 platform cruiser again and later landed a Curtis model D 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:02.760 on Pennsylvania in on January eighteenth of nineteen eleven. So 0:06:03.279 --> 0:06:05.800 those of you that were listening while I will realize 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:08.119 that it wasn't a two month flight and he didn't 0:06:08.200 --> 0:06:11.200 change planes in mid air. They just hadn't figured out 0:06:11.200 --> 0:06:13.800 the landing bit of this yet. Yeah, So so this 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:16.560 happens like two months apart or three months apart maybe, 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:20.400 So you know what happened was they did the first one, uh, 0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:23.520 and then the second, the second attempt. The second test 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:27.040 took place in San Francisco Bay, that's where the Pennsylvania 0:06:27.120 --> 0:06:32.279 was anchored, and he took off from a from from 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:35.599 a landing strip on on land, took off, flew out 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:38.760 to the ship, landed on it, stayed for an hour, 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:43.239 took off from the ship, and landed back on the mainland. Interesting, 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:45.919 so that's actually the first time that both both of 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:49.120 those things happened at one time. That the initial uh, 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:51.440 you know, the initial takeoff I guess was it was 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:53.160 just a one time deal and they just wanted to 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:55.200 see if they could do it. They didn't even really 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:57.400 considered landing at this point. I'm sure they were thinking 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:00.000 about it, but they weren't willing, willing to risk it yet. 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:02.240 They needed a couple more months to to develop a 0:07:02.240 --> 0:07:03.920 way to do it, or maybe to look into the 0:07:04.400 --> 0:07:07.039 stats of how long it took a Curtis Model D 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:10.560 to actually come to a stop, right, Because, yeah, if 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:13.560 it's longer than the boat is, you've got yourself a problem. 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:16.200 As it turns out, we would come up with ways 0:07:16.360 --> 0:07:18.960 to address that problem. Now here's the interesting thing to me. 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:22.520 The U. S. Military was very quick to test out 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:26.760 this idea, but they were not quick to implement it. Uh. 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:29.480 The navy at the time was largely of the United 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:31.600 States Navy, I should say, it was largely of the 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:36.040 opinion that this was still the domain of the big battleships, 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:40.800 and soon the cruisers would follow. Cruisers would be slightly smaller, 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:44.120 slightly more maneuverable, faster ships than battleships. And we're talking 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:47.640 about World War One era, yeah ships. Yeah. Pre World 0:07:47.640 --> 0:07:50.600 War One, into World War One, the United States was 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:54.960 not terribly concerned with adding air power to that. However, 0:07:56.000 --> 0:08:00.480 the British were definitely interested, and they began to innovate 0:08:00.560 --> 0:08:03.760 in this space. Early early on UH, they began to 0:08:03.800 --> 0:08:07.760 experiment with navy ships. First they were using essentially a 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:11.200 version of of water landing planes like seaplanes, but they 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:14.400 were those are very slow there once they landing and 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:17.559 taking off the slow and getting them aboard a ship 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:20.640 required the use of cranes. So it was it was 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:23.880 not a good process if you were under the possibility 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:27.640 of being under fire from an enemy, have that quick exactly. 0:08:27.760 --> 0:08:32.880 So they started looking into other UH possibilities and it 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:37.000 was the British Navy in nineteen eighteen that commissioned the 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:40.920 first true practical aircraft carrier. It was the h M 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:44.880 S Argus. Interesting and so the Argus is our first 0:08:45.000 --> 0:08:48.040 practical aircraft carrier. It had a large flat deck, which 0:08:48.080 --> 0:08:53.360 became standard for all aircraft carriers following ever since UM 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:55.960 and that allowed for the landing and taking off of aircraft. 0:08:56.000 --> 0:08:59.800 It was also the first that had an electrically powered 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:03.719 elevator to move aircraft from the hangar deck to the 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:06.800 flight deck. Very smart and it's something we still see today. Yes, 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:10.480 and that means that you can actually carry a lot 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:12.400 more vehicles. Plus you don't have to worry like if 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:15.160 if really bad weather is coming in. You can house 0:09:15.200 --> 0:09:17.640 them in the hangar deck as as opposed to having 0:09:17.720 --> 0:09:20.800 them have to secure them to the flight deck, which 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:22.760 could be pretty dangerous to put. You know, these are 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:27.720 huge vehicles. So that lays the groundwork for the beginning 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:33.240 of aircraft uh aircraft carrier history. But we're gonna skip 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:36.320 ahead to how they work today, and then later on 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:40.800 I'll tell you more about the various classes of aircraft 0:09:40.880 --> 0:09:44.440 carriers that the United States specifically has used over the 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:46.920 history of the Navy. Can I kind of maybe just 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:49.160 say one thing here, and maybe I'm jumping too far ahead, 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:53.760 but during World War One their use was extremely limited. 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:56.200 They really didn't even put any kind of emphasis on 0:09:56.200 --> 0:09:58.720 it at all. It really wasn't part of World War 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:02.880 One strategy in any way. But during World War Two 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:07.440 they played a critical role. Instrumental, Yeah, extremely critical because 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:09.160 and this is this I found this interesting. There was 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:12.079 a side note about one of the battles um that 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:14.760 was fought during World War Two, and it said that 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:17.880 the Battle of the Coral Sea became the first sea 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:21.240 battle in history in which neither opposing fleet saw the 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:24.559 other one. That is so interesting. I mean, imagine that 0:10:24.679 --> 0:10:27.200 there's a there's a sea battle happening where you don't 0:10:27.200 --> 0:10:29.719 see the other ship right because the battle is being 0:10:29.760 --> 0:10:31.800 fought by the planes in the air that they're launching 0:10:31.840 --> 0:10:34.079 towards each other. I mean, it's it's such a strange 0:10:34.160 --> 0:10:37.200 thought that before that that never happened. Exactly you had 0:10:37.240 --> 0:10:40.440 you had planes that were dropping bombs. They're dropping torpedoes, 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:43.680 so the planes were the weapons, right instead of instead 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:47.840 of ships firing guns at one another, they're essentially launching 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:49.800 planes at one another. And this is so far apart 0:10:49.840 --> 0:10:51.920 they cannot see each and this is so interesting because 0:10:52.040 --> 0:10:54.200 I mean, if you think about it, and again you 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:56.080 have to put yourself in the mind frame, you know 0:10:56.160 --> 0:10:58.560 that they were back in the nineteen forties. This is 0:10:58.640 --> 0:11:00.720 brand new because if you want to get a plane 0:11:00.800 --> 0:11:04.400 over a se battle, first, you probably wouldn't know where 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:06.400 it's happening, and you wouldn't be able to communicate that 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:09.760 and get that coordinated in time before something has already happened. 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:12.040 The other thing is that the range was just too 0:11:12.080 --> 0:11:14.360 great for them, because fighter planes are often you know, 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:18.080 weighted down with lots of lots of artillery, and they 0:11:18.120 --> 0:11:21.079 don't have great range. They have a shorter range than 0:11:21.760 --> 0:11:24.480 plane that's designed to fly long distances, that don't carry 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:28.559 a bunch of you know, extra weapons, bombers, you know, guns, whatever. Um. 0:11:28.640 --> 0:11:30.240 So this is a this is a brand new idea 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:32.200 that we're going to take the planes to the battle 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:35.040 and and you know, we launch them from there instead 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:37.880 of having to kind of you know, keep them far 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:40.439 far away and then maybe they'll make it, maybe they won't. 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:42.719 If they decide that they can't, you hold out long 0:11:42.800 --> 0:11:44.360 enough to get there and they'll have to turn back. 0:11:44.400 --> 0:11:46.640 It's just it was a completely different way of thinking 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:50.000 and and it's just such a fascinating time in history 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:51.839 when you look back at some of the side notes 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:54.240 of all these battles and the way that they were fought. 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:58.040 It's just completely different from World War One. Completely different. Well, really, 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:01.120 what what had happened was even during the World War 0:12:01.160 --> 0:12:05.120 One era, the navy navies around the world looked at 0:12:05.120 --> 0:12:09.640 aircraft carriers again as a means of carrying reconnaissance vehicles. 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:13.760 Planes were not terribly useful in warfare, yet at that 0:12:13.800 --> 0:12:16.720 point they were very useful for finding out where the 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:19.520 enemy fleets were so that you could direct your fleets 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:22.800 and do the most damage possible. And what what really 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:26.120 changed was that you know, you would think of like 0:12:26.160 --> 0:12:29.360 an aircraft carrier was an escort to a battleship, and 0:12:29.360 --> 0:12:31.560 the battleships were your your big boys, those were the 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:35.080 ones that actually did the damage until the attack on 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:39.480 Pearl Harbor. Now, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:42.840 ships that were uh that were docked at Pearl Harbor 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:46.800 were battleships, but the aircraft carriers were out on maneuvers. 0:12:46.880 --> 0:12:50.160 So the Japanese attack affected the battleships but not the 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:53.320 aircraft carriers, which meant that the United States was forced 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:58.600 to re evaluate their their strategies and they were forced 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:01.600 to use aircraft carriers as weapons as opposed to a 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:04.480 means of just reconnaissance. And that's what led to these 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:06.760 things like the Battle of the Coral Sea where we 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:11.560 end up getting this effect of of of aircraft carriers 0:13:11.600 --> 0:13:14.760 being used effectively as weapons of war. Well, also, and 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:17.240 I think this goes without saying, that the Japanese fleet 0:13:17.280 --> 0:13:19.640 was launched from an aircraft carrier as well, so that 0:13:19.760 --> 0:13:23.080 the the the squadrons that attacked Pearl Harbor came from 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:27.320 an aircraft carrier that was what several miles off, but 0:13:27.480 --> 0:13:30.199 you know, stealthily moved in and uh and and and 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:32.680 was able to retreat back to the homeland. Right. It 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:35.360 was incredibly effective. It was a devastating attack, as we 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:38.079 all know. And so this was really what ended up 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:43.160 changing the way wars were fought, uh for for several decades. 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:46.640 And so it was it was something that that proved 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:53.319 the aircraft carrier's importance as a vehicle in in an arsenal. Right, 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:55.520 as you just mentioned, you know, the you know, it 0:13:55.600 --> 0:13:58.040 was that the aircraft carrier was the support vehicle or 0:13:58.080 --> 0:14:02.479 the yeah, the add on vehicle, the um the chaperone, 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:05.280 I guess, right, and then the roles reversed. I mean 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:07.319 then it became that you know, the destroyers and the 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:11.160 cruisers and all those were um tagging along with the 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:14.240 aircraft carrier because that was the big guns. Right, Yeah, 0:14:14.280 --> 0:14:16.840 you had those there to protect the aircraft carrier, because 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:20.080 the aircraft carrier had all the really valuable aircraft on 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:24.240 it that could do devastating damage very very quickly. So 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:28.160 it was interesting to see such a dramatic shift and 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:30.520 it was it was a dramatic shift that, by the way, 0:14:30.760 --> 0:14:34.320 did not happen smoothly that it took the work of 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:38.840 lots of people in the Navy to convince other branches 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:41.120 of the military that this, in fact was the best 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:43.920 way of going forward. We'll talk a little bit about 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:49.080 some of the um interesting battles in the United States 0:14:49.120 --> 0:14:52.080 that had nothing to do with using weapons or fighting 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:54.520 an enemy. It was really the battles being fought between 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:57.920 different branches of the military, particularly the Air Force and 0:14:57.960 --> 0:15:02.560 the Navy. There's a there's a story about the aircraft 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:06.360 carrier that wasn't. It was one that was almost but 0:15:06.400 --> 0:15:10.120 then wasn't. Let's talk a little bit about how these 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:14.920 massive and I really do mean massive machines work. Now 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:17.520 you have seen one in person, but you've been on 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:19.920 the midway. Okay, I've seen one in person. I've never 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:22.440 been on one. Yeah, you gotta pack a lunch if 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:24.120 you're gonna walk from one side to the other. They 0:15:24.120 --> 0:15:26.040 are big. They are huge. I mean we're talking like 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:28.960 I'm just gonna ballpark. These numbers so sure, we're talking 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:32.320 like more than a thousand feet long. The deck is 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.240 measured in acres, something like four or four acres four 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:38.240 and a half acres um. They are like it's like 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:40.320 taking a building. I think I read somewhere that it 0:15:40.360 --> 0:15:44.800 was like, imagine the which building is in New York, 0:15:44.800 --> 0:15:48.400 the Chrysler building in New York. Tilt the Chrysler building 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:50.760 on its side, put it in water, and that's the 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:53.240 length of the built of the of the ship. But 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:56.720 then even greater than that. It's like it's twenty stories 0:15:56.760 --> 0:16:00.440 tall when it's floating. Yeah, yeah, it's got it's you know, 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:02.760 if you go from the keel of the ship. The 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:05.640 keel is the backbone of the ship, the part that's 0:16:06.200 --> 0:16:08.880 at the very bottom center, all the way to the 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:13.600 very top, you're talking like the equivalent of twenty four stories. Amazing. 0:16:13.640 --> 0:16:17.440 I mean it's it's a huge, huge machine with thousands 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:20.640 of parts, two thousands, well billion, a billion parts or 0:16:20.640 --> 0:16:22.280 something like that is what I read somewhere. I don't 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:24.080 know if that's true or not, but I mean they 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:26.480 literally said it's a billion parts on on these ships, 0:16:26.880 --> 0:16:30.440 and it's it's truly like running a city because there 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:32.920 are thousands of crew members. We'll talk about numbers when 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:35.160 we get to it here, but yeah, there are thousands 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:37.280 of people on board and they have to do everything 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:40.800 you know, from collecting the garbage to um, making sure 0:16:40.880 --> 0:16:43.920 that you know, people are fed, and of course fighting 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:47.760 the war maybe potentially uh running just you know, doing 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:50.000 regular missions. I guess, you know, if they're they're just 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:53.000 stationed off the coast of you know, whatever country, they 0:16:53.000 --> 0:16:55.720 just have to make sure that everything is operating smoothly. Um. 0:16:55.760 --> 0:16:58.640 There's just every concern you would have with a with 0:16:58.640 --> 0:17:01.400 a small city is happening on that ship, and there 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:03.000 has to be somebody to take care of it. A 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:07.280 small city that relies on nuclear power, because that makes 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:11.360 it even more complicated. So all modern supercarriers use nuclear 0:17:11.400 --> 0:17:15.960 power to generate steam. The ones that we talked about 0:17:15.960 --> 0:17:19.920 today have two nuclear power plants on them, uh that 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:24.840 are that's actually different from previous ones. Earlier supercarriers had 0:17:25.080 --> 0:17:29.080 more nuclear power plants, not fewer, but more because they 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:31.719 had a bunch of smaller ones. But there are there 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:34.760 are as many as eight, yes, with like four different 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:38.439 shafts that steam would go through to turn propellers. So 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:41.359 you you generate steam. I mean really, if you talk 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:43.840 about old aircraft carriers, you're still talking steam. But in 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:46.360 those days that you're talking about a boiler that's being uh, 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:51.120 that's being uh heated through using fossil fuels. Today we're 0:17:51.119 --> 0:17:53.760 talking about using nuclear power to heat up water to 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:57.560 turn it to steam. It turns steam steam turbines, which 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:02.159 do two things. Two main things. It generates the energy 0:18:02.520 --> 0:18:05.480 needed to turn the massive propellers. We're talking like more 0:18:05.520 --> 0:18:09.600 than twenty feet in diameter, right, These are huge propellers 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:14.200 that that uh, that propel the ship through the water, 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:18.520 and they are used to generate electricity on board the ship. 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:20.399 I've got a little bit more info on that if 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:22.560 you like, we can talk about it. But I just 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:24.560 want to just kind of throw some stuff in here, 0:18:24.560 --> 0:18:26.160 and you're gonna hear a bunch of notes shuffling, because 0:18:26.160 --> 0:18:28.800 I got notes every time. This is the first for 0:18:28.800 --> 0:18:30.760 me because usually I have my computer in here, but 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:33.119 actually I'm using the stuff called paper. You go on 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:35.280 low tech like, yeah, that's kind of crazy. I do 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:38.520 it all the time, low tech, low tech. Alright, So, um, 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:41.919 the US Enterprise USS Enterprise was which was built in 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:46.120 nineteen fifty eight, actually built between n and nineteen sixty one. 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:48.240 This is a big ship. Now, this is an enterprise 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:51.199 class ship because there was a previous ship that was 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:53.760 also known as the U S S Enterprise. And by 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:56.400 the way, neither of these were the ones that carried 0:18:56.480 --> 0:19:00.040 Kirk and Spock. Good point. I'm glad. I'm really that 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:02.600 you pointed that out. Yeah, although I think they did 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:05.080 visit it and Star Trek for the voyage home. Maybe 0:19:05.280 --> 0:19:07.840 maybe they went because they said, Captain, we've found the 0:19:07.880 --> 0:19:13.760 vessel and it's the Enterprise. Anyway, Okay, I'm amused by this. Alright, 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:16.439 So al right, it was in service between nine and 0:19:16.480 --> 0:19:19.600 two thousand and twelve, so it's only recently decommissioned. Um. 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:23.080 This was the first, the very first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:27.120 and it had eight what they called A two W reactors. Now, 0:19:27.200 --> 0:19:28.880 the A two W. I was wondering what the heck 0:19:28.880 --> 0:19:30.840 that stood for, so I looked it up. UM, it's 0:19:30.840 --> 0:19:33.840 pretty simple. Actually, A is just aircraft carrier. Too. Stands 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:37.960 for the second generation designed by that that UM, that 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:42.280 particular UM designer. I guess that contractor, and W stands 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:45.680 for Westinghouse and that was the contractor. So A two W. 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:50.520 So that's the second generation Westinghouse aircraft carrier power source 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:54.120 all right, and UM used in Okay, so of course 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:56.080 it was used in you know the first you know, 0:19:56.080 --> 0:19:58.480 this is the first nuclear powered and I'm gonna say 0:19:58.520 --> 0:20:03.360 nuclear nuclear nuclear clear yea, not nuclear nuclear, I might 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:05.840 say it, but you know, get ready for that. But 0:20:05.920 --> 0:20:10.359 it actually it UM provided power for four propulsion plants. 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:14.440 So each each propulsion plant had two reactors that were 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:18.800 tied to it. And Okay, according according to the way 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:21.680 that it's all laid out, I guess they each powered 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:25.119 two different chefts. So let's say there's the one A shaft, 0:20:25.160 --> 0:20:27.160 the one B cheft, the two A shaft, the two 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:29.120 B scheft, And that's kind of the way it worked, right, 0:20:29.640 --> 0:20:32.160 all right, And I'll try to try to walk through 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:34.040 this carefully here so we don't miss too much. I 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:37.480 know it's going to be a simplified version UM. But 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:40.719 each one of these was capable of of running on 0:20:40.800 --> 0:20:43.280 just one reactor if it had to, but two were 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:45.800 required for full power. So if they're gonna steam ahead, 0:20:45.840 --> 0:20:48.520 it was a top speed like thirty knots maybe, which 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:52.199 is about which is about thirty four point. Actually, the 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:57.800 Navy has been very careful to never divulge the the specifics. 0:20:57.880 --> 0:21:00.639 There were some sources I saw where they said they 0:21:00.640 --> 0:21:04.199 could move in excess of forty knots, which is incredible speed. 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:08.119 At that speed, you can water ski behind the aircraft 0:21:08.119 --> 0:21:12.080 carrier without skis water ski behind it. I would like 0:21:12.119 --> 0:21:14.280 to try that. That would be kind of exciting. Yeah 0:21:14.520 --> 0:21:16.720 all right, So, um, so you could run on one, 0:21:16.880 --> 0:21:19.080 you know, one reactor per scheft, but they said it 0:21:19.119 --> 0:21:21.640 was you know too are required for full power and 0:21:21.840 --> 0:21:24.280 you know for plane launching capability, which we'll talk about 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:26.880 why that's important in a little while. Um. Now again 0:21:26.960 --> 0:21:29.480 the simplified version of how these reactors work, if you 0:21:29.480 --> 0:21:30.960 if you want to get into it or not, I 0:21:30.960 --> 0:21:34.720 don't know. Um, it's they're actually fueled by enriched uranium 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:37.879 two thirty five. And all this is is foreign to me, 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:40.679