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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host

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Speaker 1: job in Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio

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Speaker 1: and how the tech are youa This time for a

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Speaker 1: classic episode of tech Stuff. This episode originally published April six,

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Speaker 1: twenty It is called How Aircraft Carriers Work? Part One.

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Speaker 1: I bet you can't guess what next week's classic episode

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Speaker 1: is gonna be. So we're gonna be talking a lot

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Speaker 1: about the current state of the art, which is the

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Speaker 1: Nimits class aircraft carrier. We'll talk about the next generation,

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Speaker 1: we'll talk about previous generations. But to start it all off,

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Speaker 1: I wanted to explain how amazing, how old this this

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Speaker 1: idea is. It actually pre dates controlled flight. Yes right,

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Speaker 1: you know, I don't know a whole lot about this,

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Speaker 1: because we did. We were digging into aircraft carriers and

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Speaker 1: just kind of as a side note of some some

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Speaker 1: article that I was reading, it had mentioned that in

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Speaker 1: the late nineteenth century they were using ships to launch

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Speaker 1: manned balloons right for reconnaissance, U missions and things like that.

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Speaker 1: It was always it was always about reconnaissance, and it

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Speaker 1: was about monitoring the enemy. Right, because in the nineteenth century,

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Speaker 1: the navies around the world, we're relying heavily upon battleship

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Speaker 1: class dreadnoughts, these enormous ships with heavy weaponry on them

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Speaker 1: that would batter one another. That was how naval battles

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Speaker 1: were decided back in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,

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Speaker 1: and so much so that any idea, like any thought

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Speaker 1: of using air support was mainly just to get a

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Speaker 1: look around and see where the enemy was. Like that

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Speaker 1: was the only purpose, right. They were not thought of

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Speaker 1: as this would be We're gonna weapon eyes balloons. It

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Speaker 1: was more like, we need eyes in the sky so

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Speaker 1: that we know where the enemy might be. Well, even

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Speaker 1: during the American Civil War they use balloons, uh, they would.

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Speaker 1: They would flow a balloon from their camp to check

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Speaker 1: out what the enemy was doing, you know, on the

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Speaker 1: other side of the hill, and then bring it back down.

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Speaker 1: But then the intent was never to to fire from

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Speaker 1: up there anything. It was just to keep an eye

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Speaker 1: on the on the enemy exactly exactly. And that's the

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Speaker 1: same thing is true with the earliest days of aircraft

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Speaker 1: carriers in the in the respect the way we think

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Speaker 1: of them now, what surprised me was that it did

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Speaker 1: not take long at all from the moment that we

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Speaker 1: have controlled flight that is a heavier than air aircraft

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Speaker 1: that can fly through the control of a human being,

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Speaker 1: and the first attempts at making an aircraft carrier. So

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Speaker 1: I know that there is some disagreement about who was

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Speaker 1: truly responsible for the first heavier than air aircraft. We're

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Speaker 1: gonna go with the right brothers for this one. And

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Speaker 1: they flew at Kittie Hawk in nineteen o three. It

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Speaker 1: took less than a decade before the United States military

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Speaker 1: started saying, maybe we can launch one of these suckers

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Speaker 1: from a boat. Yeah, not a bad idea. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's that's always the kind of the way it goes

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Speaker 1: right with the military. They're thinking, they're thinking, well, you

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Speaker 1: know what, this could be a devastating machine of war.

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Speaker 1: Exactly where can we make this work for us? And

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Speaker 1: that's that's exactly what they did. They said, well, let's, uh,

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Speaker 1: let's try to figure out a way to make it. Well,

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Speaker 1: they need a nice big takeoff and landing area, but well,

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Speaker 1: there's no way really to do that on a boat

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Speaker 1: unless we build something that's maybe made out of wood,

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Speaker 1: that's a huge flat deck. Let's try that. And they

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Speaker 1: did and it worked. Yeah, it was. It was crazy.

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Speaker 1: They built They built a temporary wooden deck on top

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Speaker 1: of the USS Birmingham in nineteen ten. This was truly

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Speaker 1: just an experiment, right, it was just a proof of concept,

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Speaker 1: and they found a break A man, or some might

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Speaker 1: say lunatic to attempt to fly a tiny biplane, a

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Speaker 1: Curtis biplane fifty horsepower, fifty horsepower, a fifty horse power biplane.

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Speaker 1: Can you imagine you're rolling down this wooden this wooden

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Speaker 1: platform that's built on top of a battleship. It's the

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Speaker 1: battleship was not meant to do this, right, it was

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Speaker 1: they had to shore up all this area to create

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Speaker 1: a a wooden structure for you to roll across, not

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Speaker 1: necessarily knowing if you would be able to reach the

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Speaker 1: right speed to be able to take off, or if

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Speaker 1: you would just plunge off the end into the ocean. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is a this is a scary prospect having for

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Speaker 1: this guy. I mean his name is he was actually

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Speaker 1: a civilian pilot. His name was Eugene Burton Eli And uh,

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Speaker 1: this is so strange the way this is written, and

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Speaker 1: I'll read it the way it's written, and then I'll

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Speaker 1: explain because it sounds so weird. It says on November four,

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Speaker 1: a twenty four year old civilian, civilian in pilot again Eugene,

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Speaker 1: took off in a fifty horsepower Curtis plane from the

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Speaker 1: bow of the Birmingham, which is a you know, wooden

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Speaker 1: platform cruiser again and later landed a Curtis model D

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Speaker 1: on Pennsylvania in on January eighteenth of nineteen eleven. So

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Speaker 1: those of you that were listening while, we'll realize that

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Speaker 1: it wasn't a two month flight and he didn't change

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Speaker 1: planes in mid air. They just hadn't figured out the

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Speaker 1: landing bit of this yet. Yeah, So so this happens

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Speaker 1: like two months apart or three months apart maybe, so,

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Speaker 1: ye know what happened was they did the first one, uh,

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Speaker 1: and then the second, the second attempt. The second test

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Speaker 1: took place in San Francisco Bay. That's where the Pennsylvania

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Speaker 1: was anchored, and he took off from a from from

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Speaker 1: a landing strip on on land, took off, flew out

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Speaker 1: to the ship, landed on it, stayed for an hour,

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Speaker 1: took off from the ship and landed back on the mainland. Interesting,

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Speaker 1: so that's actually the first time that both both of

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Speaker 1: those things happened at one time. That the initial uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, the initial takeoff I guess was it was

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Speaker 1: just a one time deal and they just wanted to

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Speaker 1: see if they could do it. They didn't even really

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Speaker 1: considered landing at this point. I'm sure they were thinking

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Speaker 1: about it, but they weren't willing willing to risk it yet.

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Speaker 1: They needed a couple more months to to develop a

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Speaker 1: way to do it, or maybe to look into the

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Speaker 1: stats of how long it took a Curtis Model D

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Speaker 1: to stop actually come to a stop, right, Because, yeah,

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Speaker 1: if it's longer than the boat is, you've got yourself

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Speaker 1: a problem. As it turns out, we would come up

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Speaker 1: with ways to address that problem. Now here's the interesting

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Speaker 1: thing to me. The U. S. Military was very quick

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Speaker 1: to test out this idea, but they were not quick

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Speaker 1: to implement it. Uh. The Navy at the time was

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Speaker 1: largely of the United States Navy, I should say, it

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Speaker 1: was largely of the opinion that this was still the

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Speaker 1: domain of the big battleships, and soon the cruisers would follow.

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Speaker 1: Cruisers would be slightly smaller slightly more maneuverable, faster ships

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Speaker 1: than battleships. And we're talking about World War one era,

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Speaker 1: yeah ships, yeah, pre World War One, into World War One,

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Speaker 1: the United States was not terribly concerned with adding air

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Speaker 1: power to that. However, the British were definitely interested and

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Speaker 1: they began to innovate in this space early early on. UH.

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Speaker 1: They began to experiment with navy ships. First, they were

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Speaker 1: using essentially a version of of water landing planes like seaplanes,

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Speaker 1: but they were those are very slow there. Once they

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Speaker 1: landing and taking off the slow and getting them aboard

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Speaker 1: a ship required the use of cranes. So it was

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Speaker 1: it was not a good process if you were under

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Speaker 1: the possibility of being under fire from an enemy quick exactly.

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Speaker 1: So they started looking into other UH possibilities and it

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Speaker 1: was the British Navy in nineteen eighteen that commissioned the

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Speaker 1: first true practical aircraft carrier. It was the h M

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Speaker 1: S Argus. Interesting and so the Argus is our first

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Speaker 1: practical aircraft carrier. It had a large flat deck, which

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Speaker 1: became standard for all aircraft carriers following ever since UM

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Speaker 1: and that allowed for the landing and taking off of aircraft.

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Speaker 1: It was also the first that had an electrically powered

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Speaker 1: elevator to move aircraft from the hangar deck to the

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Speaker 1: flight deck. Very smart and it's something we still see today. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and that means that you can actually carry a lot

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Speaker 1: more vehicles. Plus you don't have to worry like if

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Speaker 1: if really bad weather is coming in, you can house

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Speaker 1: them in the hangar deck as to as opposed to

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Speaker 1: having them have to secure them to the flight deck,

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Speaker 1: which could be pretty dangerous to put. You know, these

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Speaker 1: are huge vehicles. So that lays the groundwork for the

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Speaker 1: beginning of aircraft uh aircraft carrier history. But we're gonna

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Speaker 1: skip ahead to how they work today and then later

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Speaker 1: on I'll tell you more about the various classes of

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Speaker 1: aircraft carriers that the United States specifically has used over

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Speaker 1: the history of the Navy. Can I can I maybe

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Speaker 1: just one thing here, and maybe I'm jumping too far ahead,

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Speaker 1: but during World War One their use was extremely limited.

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Speaker 1: They really didn't even put any kind of emphasis on

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Speaker 1: it at all. It really wasn't part of World War

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Speaker 1: One strategy in any way. But during World War Two

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Speaker 1: they played a critical role. Instrumental, yeah, extremely critical because

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Speaker 1: and this is I found this interesting. There was a

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Speaker 1: side note about one of the battles um that was

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Speaker 1: fought during World War Two, and it said that the

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Speaker 1: Battle of the Coral Sea became the first sea battle

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Speaker 1: in history in which neither opposing fleet saw the other one.

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Speaker 1: That is so interesting. I mean, imagine that there's a

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Speaker 1: there's a sea battle happening where you don't see the

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Speaker 1: other ship because the battle is being fought by the

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Speaker 1: planes in the air that they're launching towards each other.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's such a strange thought that before

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Speaker 1: that that never happened. Exactly. You had you had planes

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Speaker 1: that were dropping bombs, They're dropping torpedoes, so the planes

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Speaker 1: were the weapons, right instead of instead of ships firing

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Speaker 1: guns at one another, there s launching planes at one another.

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Speaker 1: And this is so far apart they cannot see each

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Speaker 1: And this is so interesting because I mean, if you

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Speaker 1: think about it, and again you have to put yourself

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Speaker 1: in the mind frame, you know that they were back

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Speaker 1: in the nineteen forties. This is brand new because if

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Speaker 1: you wanted to get a plane over a sea battle first,

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Speaker 1: you probably wouldn't know where it's happening, and you wouldn't

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Speaker 1: be able to communicate that and get that coordinated in

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Speaker 1: time before something has already happened. The other thing is

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Speaker 1: that the range was just too great for them, because

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Speaker 1: fighter planes are often you know, weighted down with lots

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Speaker 1: of lots of artillery, and they don't have great range.

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Speaker 1: They have a shorter range than plane that's designed to

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Speaker 1: fly long distances that don't carry a bunch of you know,

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Speaker 1: extra weapons, you know, guns, whatever. Um. So this is

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Speaker 1: a this is a brand new idea that we're going

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Speaker 1: to take the planes to the battle and and you know,

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Speaker 1: launch them from there instead of having to kind of

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Speaker 1: you know, keep them far far away and then maybe

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Speaker 1: they'll make it, maybe they won't. If they decide that

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Speaker 1: they can't you know, hold out long enough to get there,

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Speaker 1: they'll have to turn back. It's just it was a

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Speaker 1: completely different way of thinking and and and it's just

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Speaker 1: such a fascinating time in history when you look back

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Speaker 1: at some of the side notes of all these battles

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Speaker 1: and the way that they were fought. It's just completely

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Speaker 1: different from World War One, completely different. Well, really, what

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Speaker 1: what had happened was even during the World War One era,

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Speaker 1: the navy navies around the world looked at aircraft carriers

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Speaker 1: again as a means of carrying reconnaissance vehicles. Planes were

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Speaker 1: not terribly useful in warfare, yet at that point they

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Speaker 1: were very useful for finding out where the enemy fleets

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Speaker 1: were so that you could direct your fleets and do

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Speaker 1: the most damage possible. And what what really changed was

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Speaker 1: that you know, you would think of like an aircraft

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Speaker 1: carrier was an escort to a battleship, and the battleships

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Speaker 1: were your your big boys. Those were the ones that

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Speaker 1: actually did the damage until the attack on Pearl Harbor. Now,

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Speaker 1: when the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, the ships that were

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Speaker 1: uh that were docked at Pearl Harbor were battleships, but

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Speaker 1: the aircraft carriers were out on maneuvers. So the Japanese

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Speaker 1: attack affected the battleships but not the aircraft carriers, which

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Speaker 1: meant that the United States was forced to reevaluate their

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Speaker 1: their strategies and they were forced to use aircraft carriers

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Speaker 1: as weapons as opposed to a means of just reconnaissance.

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Speaker 1: And that's what led to these things like the Battle

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Speaker 1: of the Coral Sea, where we end up getting this

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Speaker 1: effect of of of aircraft carriers being used effectively as

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Speaker 1: weapons of war. Well also, and I think this goes

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Speaker 1: without saying, that the Japanese fleet was launched from an

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Speaker 1: aircraft carrier as well, so that the the the squadrons

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Speaker 1: that attacked Pearl Harbor came from an aircraft carrier that

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Speaker 1: was what several miles off, but you know, stealthily moved

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Speaker 1: in and uh and and and was able to retreat

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Speaker 1: back to the homeland. Right. It was incredibly effective. It

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Speaker 1: was a devastating attack, as we all know. And so

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Speaker 1: this was really what ended up changing the way wars

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Speaker 1: were fought, uh for for several decades. And so it

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Speaker 1: was it was something that that proved the aircraft carriers

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Speaker 1: importance as a vehicle in in an arsenal Right, as

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Speaker 1: you just mentioned, you know, the you know, it was

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Speaker 1: that the aircraft carrier was the support vehicle or the yeah,

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Speaker 1: the the add on vehicle, the um the chaperone I

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Speaker 1: guess should go along, right, And then the roles reversed.

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Speaker 1: I mean then it became that you know, the destroyers

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Speaker 1: and the cruisers and all those were um tagging along

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Speaker 1: with the aircraft carrier because that was the big guns, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you had those there to protect the aircraft carrier, because

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Speaker 1: the aircraft carrier had all the really valuable aircraft on

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Speaker 1: it that could do devastating damage very very quickly. So

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Speaker 1: it was interesting to see such a dramatic shift, and

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Speaker 1: it was. It was a dramatic shift that, by the way,

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Speaker 1: did not happen smoothly. That it took the work of

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Speaker 1: lots of people in the Navy to convince other branches

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Speaker 1: of the military that this, in fact was the best

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Speaker 1: way of going forward. We'll talk a little bit about

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Speaker 1: some of the um interesting battles in the United States

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Speaker 1: that had nothing to do with using weapons or fighting

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Speaker 1: an enemy. It was really the battles being fought between

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Speaker 1: different branches of the military, particularly the air Force and

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Speaker 1: the Navy. There's a there's a story about the aircraft

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Speaker 1: carrier that wasn't. It was one that was almost but

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Speaker 1: then wasn't. But let's talk a little bit about how

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Speaker 1: these massive and I really do mean massive machines work.

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Speaker 1: Now you have seen one in person, I have been

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Speaker 1: on the Midway. Okay, i've seen one in person. I've

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Speaker 1: never been on one. Yeah, you gotta pack a lunch

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Speaker 1: if you're gonna walk from one side to the other.

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Speaker 1: They are big. They are huge. I mean we're talking

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Speaker 1: like I'm just gonna ballpark these numbers. So we're talking

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Speaker 1: like more than a thousand feet long. The deck is

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Speaker 1: measured in acres, something like four or five acres four

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Speaker 1: and half acres um. They are like it's like taking

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Speaker 1: a building. I think I read somewhere that it was like,

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Speaker 1: imagine the which building is in New York, the Chrysler

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Speaker 1: building in New York until the the Chrysler building on

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Speaker 1: its side. Put it in water, and that's the length

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Speaker 1: of the built of the of the ship. But then

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Speaker 1: even greater than that. It's like it's twenty stories tall

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Speaker 1: when it's floating. Yeah, yeah, it's got it's you know,

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Speaker 1: if you go from the keel of the ship, the

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Speaker 1: keel is the backbone of the ship, the part that's

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Speaker 1: at the very bottom center, all the way to the

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Speaker 1: very top. You're talking like the equivalent of twenty four

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Speaker 1: stories amazing. I mean, it's it's a huge, huge machine

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Speaker 1: with thousands of parts, two thousands, well billion of billion

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Speaker 1: parts or something like that is what I read somewhere.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if that's true or not, but I

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Speaker 1: mean they literally said it's a billion parts on on

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Speaker 1: these ships. And it's it's truly like running a city

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Speaker 1: because there are thousands of crew members. We'll talk about

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Speaker 1: numbers when we get to it here, but yeah, there

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Speaker 1: are thousands of people on board and they have to

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Speaker 1: do everything, you know, from collecting the garbage to um

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Speaker 1: making sure that you know, people are fed, and of

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Speaker 1: course fighting war, maybe potentially running just you know, doing

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Speaker 1: regular missions. I guess, you know, if they're they're just

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Speaker 1: stationed off the coast of you know, whatever country, they

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Speaker 1: just have to make sure that everything is operating smoothly. Um.

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Speaker 1: There's just every concern you would have with a with

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Speaker 1: a small city is happening on that ship and there

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Speaker 1: has to be somebody to take care of it. A

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Speaker 1: small city that relies on nuclear power, because that makes

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Speaker 1: it even more complicated. So all modern supercarriers use nuclear

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Speaker 1: power to generate steam. The ones that we talked about

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Speaker 1: today have two nuclear power plants on them. Uh that

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Speaker 1: are that's actually different from previous ones. Earlier supercarriers had

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Speaker 1: more nuclear power plants, not fewer, but more because they

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Speaker 1: had a bunch of smaller ones. But there were there

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Speaker 1: are as many as eight, yes, with like four different

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Speaker 1: shafts that steam would go through to turn propellers, so

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Speaker 1: you you generate steam. I mean really, if you talk

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Speaker 1: about old aircraft carriers, you're still talking steam. But in

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Speaker 1: those days that you're talking about a boiler that's being uh,

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Speaker 1: that's being uh heated through using fossil fuels. Today we're

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Speaker 1: talking about using nuclear power to heat up water to

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Speaker 1: turn it to steam. It turns steam steam turbines, which

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Speaker 1: do two things. Two main things. It generates the energy

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Speaker 1: needed to turn the massive propellers. We're talking like more

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Speaker 1: than twenty feet in diameter, right, These are huge propellers

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Speaker 1: that that uh that propel the ship through the water,

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Speaker 1: and they are used to generate electricity on board the ship.

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Speaker 1: I've got a little bit more info on that, if

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Speaker 1: you like, we can talk about it. I just want

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Speaker 1: to just kind of throw some stuff in here, and

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Speaker 1: you're gonna hear a bunch of notes shuffling because I

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Speaker 1: got notes everyone too. This is the first for me

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Speaker 1: because usually I have my computer in here, but actually

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Speaker 1: I'm using the stuff called paper on low tech. Like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's kind of crazy. I do it all the time,

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Speaker 1: low tech low tech. Alright, So, um, the US Enterprise.

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Speaker 1: USS Enterprise was which was built in nineteen fifty eight, well,

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Speaker 1: actually built between n and nineteen sixty one. This is

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Speaker 1: a big ship. This is an enterprise class ship because

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Speaker 1: there was a previous ship that was also known as

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Speaker 1: the U. S. S Enterprise. And by the way, neither

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Speaker 1: of these were the ones that carried Kirk and Spock.

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Speaker 1: Good point. I'm glad. I'm really glad you pointed that out. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: although I think they did visit it and Star Trek

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Speaker 1: for the voyage home. Maybe maybe they went because they said, Captain,

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Speaker 1: we found the vessel and it's the Enterprise. Anyway, Okay,

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Speaker 1: I'm amused by this. Alright, So al right, it was

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Speaker 1: in service between nine and two thousand and twelve, so

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Speaker 1: it's only recently decommissioned. UM. This was the first, the

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Speaker 1: very first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, and it had eight

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Speaker 1: what they called A two W reactors. Now the A

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Speaker 1: two W. I was wondering what the heck that stood for,

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Speaker 1: so I looked it up. UM. It's pretty simple. Actually,

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Speaker 1: A is just aircraft carrier too. Stands for the second

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Speaker 1: generation designed by that that UM, that particular UM designer.

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Speaker 1: I guess that contractor and W stands for Westinghouse and

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Speaker 1: that was the contractor, so A two W. So that's

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Speaker 1: the second generation from the Westinghouse aircraft carrier power source,

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Speaker 1: all right, and UM used in Okay, so of course

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Speaker 1: it was used in you know, the first you know,

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Speaker 1: this is the first nuclear powered and I'm gonna say

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Speaker 1: nuclear nuclear nuclear nuclear, yeah, nuclear nuclear, I might say it,

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Speaker 1: but you know, get ready for that. But it actually

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Speaker 1: it UM provided power for four propulsion plans. So each

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Speaker 1: each propulsion plant had two reactors that were tied to it.

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Speaker 1: And Okay, according according to the way that it's all

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Speaker 1: laid out, I guess they each powered two different chefts.

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Speaker 1: So let's say there's the one A shaft, the one

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Speaker 1: B cheft, the two A shaft, the two B seft,

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Speaker 1: And that's kind of the way it worked, right, all right,

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Speaker 1: And I'll try to try to walk through this carefully

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Speaker 1: here so we don't miss too much. I know it's

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Speaker 1: going to be a simplified version. UM. But each one

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Speaker 1: of these was capable of running on just one reactor

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Speaker 1: if it had to, but two were required for full power.

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Speaker 1: So if they're gonna steam ahead, it was a top

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Speaker 1: be like thirty knots maybe, which is about which is

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Speaker 1: about thirty four point five mile. Actually, the Navy has

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Speaker 1: been very careful to never divulge the the specifics. There

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Speaker 1: were some sources I saw where they said they could

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Speaker 1: move in excess of forty knots, which is incredible speed.

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Speaker 1: At that speed, you can water ski behind the aircraft

374
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Speaker 1: carrier without skis would bear with the water ski behind it.

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Speaker 1: I would like to try that. That would be kind

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Speaker 1: of exciting. Yeah, all right, So, UM, so you could

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Speaker 1: run on one, you know, one reactor per cheft, but

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Speaker 1: they said it was you know too are required for

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Speaker 1: full power and you know, for plane launching capability, which

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00:20:36,680 --> 00:20:39,360
Speaker 1: we'll talk about why that's important in a little while. UM.

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Speaker 1: Now again the simplified version of how these reactors work,

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Speaker 1: if you if you want to get into it or not,

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Speaker 1: I don't know. UM it's they're actually fueled by enriched

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Speaker 1: uranium two thirty five. And all this is is foreign

385
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Speaker 1: to me. I'm like that I'm speaking another language, so

386
00:20:53,119 --> 00:20:56,600
Speaker 1: bear with me. But they use um something called halfnium

387
00:20:56,720 --> 00:20:59,320
Speaker 1: control rods, you know, karactor, and that's how that's how

388
00:20:59,320 --> 00:21:03,080
Speaker 1: they control um, just how much scheme they're creating able

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00:21:03,119 --> 00:21:06,159
Speaker 1: to to submerse or or pull them out to a

390
00:21:06,280 --> 00:21:10,439
Speaker 1: level that reaches what they're called the criticality point. And

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Speaker 1: I hope I'm saying that right. But that's the point

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Speaker 1: which nuclear fission reactors reach a place where they're self sustaining. Yes,

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Speaker 1: they they create their own energy. What's happening is that

394
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Speaker 1: when when one of those atoms decays, it generates some

395
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Speaker 1: very high energy particles, which when they collide with other atoms,

396
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Speaker 1: cause them to decay, and then you get a self

397
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Speaker 1: sustaining reaction, which, by the way, if you aren't able

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Speaker 1: to contain, becomes a meltdown. So so anytime we're talking

399
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Speaker 1: nuclear power with fission, it's a very uh scientific approach,

400
00:21:50,200 --> 00:21:53,000
Speaker 1: a delicate balance to make sure that you have the

401
00:21:53,040 --> 00:21:55,480
Speaker 1: balance between generating the heat you need so that you

402
00:21:55,520 --> 00:21:57,560
Speaker 1: can create the steam you need to turn a turbine

403
00:21:58,680 --> 00:22:01,199
Speaker 1: and preventing it from getting out of control. Yes, and

404
00:22:01,240 --> 00:22:03,240
Speaker 1: that's part of you know why they have these cool

405
00:22:03,280 --> 00:22:05,440
Speaker 1: down towers and all that, right, So their their water

406
00:22:05,560 --> 00:22:08,320
Speaker 1: cooled and that's where the steam is created because of

407
00:22:08,320 --> 00:22:10,440
Speaker 1: the cooling water that they use for these things. So

408
00:22:11,040 --> 00:22:13,600
Speaker 1: the steam or the the and then this is again

409
00:22:13,960 --> 00:22:16,080
Speaker 1: very very simplified because there's a lot of processes that

410
00:22:16,160 --> 00:22:19,120
Speaker 1: happened here. But the steam is sent to the main

411
00:22:19,200 --> 00:22:22,600
Speaker 1: engine area, UM, you know for the electrical generators, UM,

412
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Speaker 1: the air aircraft catapult system, and lots of other auxiliary

413
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Speaker 1: features that that they'll talk that they mentioned here in

414
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Speaker 1: this article. UM so runs just about it. Actually it

415
00:22:33,320 --> 00:22:35,480
Speaker 1: does run everything on board, so anything I mean you

416
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Speaker 1: flip light switch that's being run by while steam power,

417
00:22:38,440 --> 00:22:42,359
Speaker 1: but from nuclear from a nuclear rear. Yeah, yeah, it's amazing.

418
00:22:42,440 --> 00:22:45,760
Speaker 1: So the turbines, which are double ended, are then caused

419
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Speaker 1: to spin at a high rate of speed from from

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Speaker 1: the steam and the main shaft UM, which which is

421
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:52,840
Speaker 1: you know, spinning with the turbine, you know, at the

422
00:22:53,040 --> 00:22:55,159
Speaker 1: very very high rate of speed. It goes through a

423
00:22:55,200 --> 00:22:57,720
Speaker 1: reduction gear which kind of steps down the power to

424
00:22:57,920 --> 00:22:59,679
Speaker 1: a point where they're able to use it even to

425
00:22:59,680 --> 00:23:02,920
Speaker 1: prepare all the ship. Because those propellers are giants. They're

426
00:23:02,960 --> 00:23:05,159
Speaker 1: like twenty one ft across and there's four of them,

427
00:23:06,080 --> 00:23:09,240
Speaker 1: huge huge screws on these things, and for them to

428
00:23:09,240 --> 00:23:11,320
Speaker 1: even be able to use that power, there's so much

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00:23:11,359 --> 00:23:13,600
Speaker 1: power there that they have to reduce the power in

430
00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:15,439
Speaker 1: order to be able to propel the ship forward. Right,

431
00:23:15,600 --> 00:23:18,960
Speaker 1: I can imagine like what's really important there, at least initially,

432
00:23:19,080 --> 00:23:21,960
Speaker 1: is the torque you gotta create. You gotta create the

433
00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:24,320
Speaker 1: torque necessary to get those things moving. I would think

434
00:23:24,320 --> 00:23:28,359
Speaker 1: it's important. Y. Yeah, let's take a quick break to

435
00:23:28,480 --> 00:23:43,880
Speaker 1: thank our sponsor. Uh So why go with nuclear power

436
00:23:43,920 --> 00:23:46,840
Speaker 1: in the first place? Well, the big reason is that

437
00:23:46,880 --> 00:23:50,160
Speaker 1: you don't need to refuel for many, many years. Yes,

438
00:23:50,240 --> 00:23:52,399
Speaker 1: no range anxiety. That's what I was. I wrote that

439
00:23:52,440 --> 00:23:54,399
Speaker 1: down here in this when I when I wrote that

440
00:23:54,480 --> 00:23:58,080
Speaker 1: self sustaining part, I wrote down no range anxiety. That's amazing.

441
00:23:58,119 --> 00:23:59,800
Speaker 1: So they can go out and they can spend a

442
00:24:00,040 --> 00:24:02,040
Speaker 1: year out at sea if they want to, two years

443
00:24:02,119 --> 00:24:04,320
Speaker 1: or three years or whatever, and and you know they're

444
00:24:04,320 --> 00:24:07,040
Speaker 1: able to. Obviously food would be something that they would need.

445
00:24:07,080 --> 00:24:10,639
Speaker 1: Supplies for water not so much, because they have desalination plants.

446
00:24:10,640 --> 00:24:14,480
Speaker 1: They can actually convert seawater into drinkable water. But it

447
00:24:14,560 --> 00:24:18,280
Speaker 1: does mean that they don't have to refuel, uh nearly

448
00:24:18,320 --> 00:24:21,120
Speaker 1: as frequently. When they do refuel, that's a multi year

449
00:24:21,119 --> 00:24:25,800
Speaker 1: process because nuclear fuel is snow joke. But it they

450
00:24:25,840 --> 00:24:30,040
Speaker 1: can go decades before needing to refuel. It's amazing. Amazing.

451
00:24:30,040 --> 00:24:31,560
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say that over and over again. You're gonna

452
00:24:31,560 --> 00:24:34,120
Speaker 1: be saying something. I'm just gonna say, that's incredible. That's amazing.

453
00:24:34,200 --> 00:24:37,919
Speaker 1: And another thing that makes this really uh interesting is

454
00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:40,600
Speaker 1: not from the technological point of view, but from the

455
00:24:40,600 --> 00:24:45,840
Speaker 1: political point of view. Aircraft carriers are considered sovereign territory.

456
00:24:45,960 --> 00:24:48,520
Speaker 1: So as long as that sovereign territory does not venture

457
00:24:48,600 --> 00:24:53,520
Speaker 1: too close to say, a country's borders within it, you know,

458
00:24:53,680 --> 00:24:57,240
Speaker 1: that extent out from the coast, out a certain number

459
00:24:57,280 --> 00:24:59,760
Speaker 1: of miles into the ocean, as long as the aircraft

460
00:24:59,800 --> 00:25:02,719
Speaker 1: carry years outside of that is technically a part of

461
00:25:02,720 --> 00:25:06,800
Speaker 1: whatever nation owns that aircraft carriers. So in the United

462
00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:11,200
Speaker 1: States sense, you are on US quote unquote soil while

463
00:25:11,240 --> 00:25:13,719
Speaker 1: you're on an aircraft carrier. Even if that aircraft carrier

464
00:25:13,920 --> 00:25:17,399
Speaker 1: is parked way out and you know, in in the

465
00:25:17,440 --> 00:25:21,199
Speaker 1: Middle East or in Asia or wherever, you're still on

466
00:25:21,320 --> 00:25:24,359
Speaker 1: US soil. I like that idea. Yeah, So it really

467
00:25:24,440 --> 00:25:26,760
Speaker 1: is like a floating city, you know, is the city

468
00:25:26,800 --> 00:25:29,960
Speaker 1: itself can actually relocate. Uh. So let's talk a little

469
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:32,440
Speaker 1: bit about some of the different parts of this. We

470
00:25:32,440 --> 00:25:35,680
Speaker 1: we mentioned that the top deck is the flight deck,

471
00:25:36,520 --> 00:25:39,320
Speaker 1: that is, of course, where all the planes take off

472
00:25:39,320 --> 00:25:42,560
Speaker 1: and land. In the old days, we're talking propeller planes.

473
00:25:42,680 --> 00:25:46,560
Speaker 1: These days were talking jets. Uh. The the design of

474
00:25:46,600 --> 00:25:49,800
Speaker 1: aircraft carriers has had to change dramatically along with the

475
00:25:49,880 --> 00:25:52,440
Speaker 1: evolution of aircraft, and we'll talk more about that when

476
00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:55,880
Speaker 1: I get into the different classes of aircraft carriers. One

477
00:25:55,880 --> 00:25:58,560
Speaker 1: of the things that you mentioned, Scott was the steam

478
00:25:58,680 --> 00:26:02,960
Speaker 1: powered catapult. And you guys might be wondering, what is that.

479
00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:05,040
Speaker 1: What do you mean by catapult? Is there like an

480
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:08,000
Speaker 1: medieval catapult that you put the plane in and it

481
00:26:08,080 --> 00:26:11,240
Speaker 1: launches it? Not quite, No, no, Well, the idea is

482
00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:13,720
Speaker 1: that you know, with with the advent of of jet

483
00:26:13,760 --> 00:26:15,399
Speaker 1: aircraft and the idea that you want to put them

484
00:26:15,400 --> 00:26:18,359
Speaker 1: on a on a boat and launch them. That requires

485
00:26:18,480 --> 00:26:20,879
Speaker 1: a lot of airflow over the surface of the of

486
00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:23,040
Speaker 1: the wing in order for it to get enough lift

487
00:26:23,040 --> 00:26:24,840
Speaker 1: to be able to get off this ship. Right and that,

488
00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:28,680
Speaker 1: and they have a they have a truncated uh, takeoff

489
00:26:28,720 --> 00:26:31,960
Speaker 1: strip right because it's they're limited by the length of

490
00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:33,879
Speaker 1: the vessel. And it's not even the full length of

491
00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:36,720
Speaker 1: the vessel, no, it's it's part of it. So it's

492
00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:39,919
Speaker 1: like three basically yeah. So there are two things that

493
00:26:40,000 --> 00:26:44,480
Speaker 1: aircraft carriers due to to improve the ability of jets

494
00:26:44,520 --> 00:26:47,639
Speaker 1: to take off. One is they turn into the wind

495
00:26:48,119 --> 00:26:50,600
Speaker 1: and they go as fast as they can into the wind,

496
00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:54,080
Speaker 1: which generates more airflow. That is so smart, right, You

497
00:26:54,119 --> 00:26:56,800
Speaker 1: don't want to go away because then that reduces airflow.

498
00:26:56,880 --> 00:26:58,760
Speaker 1: So they turn into the wind and they go as

499
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:01,480
Speaker 1: fast as they can to general airflow. And then they

500
00:27:01,480 --> 00:27:05,040
Speaker 1: have to find a way to have these jets accelerate

501
00:27:05,400 --> 00:27:07,800
Speaker 1: rapidly so that they can get to a speed where

502
00:27:07,840 --> 00:27:11,159
Speaker 1: they can take off. And that's where this steam catapult

503
00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:13,159
Speaker 1: comes in. And it looks like a slot on the

504
00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:15,440
Speaker 1: deck of the ship and that's all it looks like. Really,

505
00:27:15,640 --> 00:27:17,479
Speaker 1: and if you you know what, I'll be honest with you,

506
00:27:17,520 --> 00:27:19,240
Speaker 1: I think this matches up with a lot of the

507
00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:22,720
Speaker 1: way that they're launching some current roller coasters. Now, yeah,

508
00:27:22,760 --> 00:27:26,520
Speaker 1: you've seen this. I can't. There's one in um see

509
00:27:26,560 --> 00:27:29,359
Speaker 1: your point in Michigan, I mean sorry, in Ohiole and

510
00:27:29,440 --> 00:27:31,640
Speaker 1: it's called top fuel dragster I think. And you sit

511
00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:34,520
Speaker 1: on the launch pad and it's going to the roller

512
00:27:34,520 --> 00:27:38,280
Speaker 1: coaster you have. Okay, So it's the same idea. You

513
00:27:38,320 --> 00:27:40,679
Speaker 1: can probably describe it. I mean it's it's it's steam

514
00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:42,320
Speaker 1: pressure that builds it, and I don't know if it's steam.

515
00:27:42,320 --> 00:27:44,920
Speaker 1: In that case, it builds up pressure in the cylinder

516
00:27:45,119 --> 00:27:48,040
Speaker 1: and you're holding it back. You're you're you're resisting that. Yeah,

517
00:27:48,040 --> 00:27:50,240
Speaker 1: you're allowing that pressure to continue to build. There's a

518
00:27:50,280 --> 00:27:53,920
Speaker 1: piston that's at the end of the cylinder, and behind

519
00:27:54,040 --> 00:27:57,040
Speaker 1: that piston is where you're building up this incredible amount

520
00:27:57,080 --> 00:27:59,920
Speaker 1: of pressure. Keep in mind, the steam is coming from

521
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:03,400
Speaker 1: the the nuclear power generator. That's what's that's what's creating

522
00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:06,679
Speaker 1: the heat, that's creating the steam. So there's plenty of it.

523
00:28:06,760 --> 00:28:09,600
Speaker 1: There's no shortage of steam here. And just build and

524
00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:11,800
Speaker 1: build the pressure until you've reached the right amount, which

525
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:15,480
Speaker 1: by the way, is determined by a flight controller and

526
00:28:15,520 --> 00:28:17,840
Speaker 1: it's based upon the type of aircraft that needs to

527
00:28:17,920 --> 00:28:21,359
Speaker 1: launch and the current deck conditions. Again, very smart, because

528
00:28:21,520 --> 00:28:24,240
Speaker 1: they found out that you know, uh, certain planes require

529
00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:26,399
Speaker 1: more force to be able to launch at a certain speed,

530
00:28:26,680 --> 00:28:28,520
Speaker 1: and if you don't do it hard enough, it's gonna

531
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:30,520
Speaker 1: go right off into the ocean and that's bad news

532
00:28:30,520 --> 00:28:33,680
Speaker 1: for everybody. Exactly. So, the the aircraft have what's called

533
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:36,520
Speaker 1: a toe bar, which connects into the shuttle. The shuttle

534
00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:39,160
Speaker 1: is the element on the aircraft carrier that actually moves

535
00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:42,200
Speaker 1: through the steam kettaple that then accelerates at this incredible rate.

536
00:28:42,560 --> 00:28:45,680
Speaker 1: The pistons, there's actually a pair of them. So there's

537
00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:49,240
Speaker 1: cylinder on either side that connect to this this shuttle.

538
00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:52,880
Speaker 1: The toe bar hooks in uh, and the toe bar

539
00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:55,040
Speaker 1: is connected to the nose of the aircraft. Yeah, the

540
00:28:55,040 --> 00:28:57,680
Speaker 1: wheels up front, and there's also something called a hold

541
00:28:57,680 --> 00:29:00,600
Speaker 1: back which they fastened between the back of the wheel

542
00:29:00,640 --> 00:29:04,160
Speaker 1: and the shuttle. UM. And the whole back is was

543
00:29:04,360 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 1: it does just what it says, it holds back the

544
00:29:06,560 --> 00:29:08,760
Speaker 1: jet because one of the other things you have to do,

545
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:11,440
Speaker 1: let's turn on those jet engines. Yeah, this is interesting

546
00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:14,760
Speaker 1: because they do raise something that big platform behind it

547
00:29:14,800 --> 00:29:17,520
Speaker 1: that raises up behind the the airplane. You can picture this.

548
00:29:17,680 --> 00:29:20,000
Speaker 1: It's almost like a wall that stands up behind the plane.

549
00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:22,280
Speaker 1: And what that does is it's a it's just a

550
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:24,520
Speaker 1: jet blast deflector in fact, that's what they call it.

551
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:27,840
Speaker 1: And that just doesn't allow you know, somebody get blown overboard,

552
00:29:27,920 --> 00:29:30,280
Speaker 1: you know, behind them when you know you go full

553
00:29:30,280 --> 00:29:33,120
Speaker 1: throttle on F A teen or whatever exactly. Yeah, So

554
00:29:33,120 --> 00:29:36,400
Speaker 1: so that that launches up. And just before launch, I

555
00:29:36,400 --> 00:29:38,240
Speaker 1: mean they're you know, they're checking everything. They're all they

556
00:29:38,280 --> 00:29:40,960
Speaker 1: getting all the signals for the go and everything, and

557
00:29:41,760 --> 00:29:45,160
Speaker 1: the pilot has to go full throttle while he's still

558
00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:48,600
Speaker 1: attached to the shuttle via the toebar and the hole

559
00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:51,120
Speaker 1: back is still in place. He's going full throttle and

560
00:29:51,160 --> 00:29:53,600
Speaker 1: then they give the and then they finally give the

561
00:29:53,600 --> 00:29:56,320
Speaker 1: the go I guess for the Shuttle to to launch.

562
00:29:56,400 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 1: And that's what catapults the the aircraft off the end,

563
00:30:00,040 --> 00:30:02,760
Speaker 1: the plane off the end of the deck. Essentially you say,

564
00:30:03,040 --> 00:30:06,200
Speaker 1: release the the so that the pressure can push the

565
00:30:06,240 --> 00:30:09,080
Speaker 1: pistons forward. That so the in a in a way,

566
00:30:09,160 --> 00:30:12,400
Speaker 1: the you know, the plane is being towed. That's why

567
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:15,600
Speaker 1: you caught the tobar by the shuttle at an incredible speed.

568
00:30:16,080 --> 00:30:18,360
Speaker 1: When it gets to the end, it can then take

569
00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:23,200
Speaker 1: off and fly off into the great Blue yonder hopefully. Yeah,

570
00:30:24,120 --> 00:30:26,720
Speaker 1: if everything has gone well, And this was the Shuttle

571
00:30:26,720 --> 00:30:30,200
Speaker 1: technology again was pioneered by the British, and you know what,

572
00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:32,240
Speaker 1: just to give you an idea how strong this is,

573
00:30:32,280 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 1: and you get back to the British in just a second,

574
00:30:33,880 --> 00:30:36,040
Speaker 1: but this is a really strong system and we're talking

575
00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:37,760
Speaker 1: about steam and you might think it's not all that

576
00:30:37,760 --> 00:30:40,000
Speaker 1: that forceful, but or maybe you do. I don't know,

577
00:30:40,080 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 1: but it takes a forty five thousand pound plane from

578
00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:46,080
Speaker 1: zero to one hundred and sixty five miles per hour

579
00:30:46,720 --> 00:30:49,640
Speaker 1: in two seconds. Yeah that's that's faster than a Tesla

580
00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:53,800
Speaker 1: two seconds. Yeah, that's considerably fast. It's not quite as

581
00:30:53,800 --> 00:30:58,280
Speaker 1: fast as the top fuel dragster, which is pretty by

582
00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:02,520
Speaker 1: the way, it's a it's an intense roller coaster. Uh

583
00:31:02,640 --> 00:31:04,920
Speaker 1: two times I wrote that. Yeah, Oh, I wasn't even

584
00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:06,320
Speaker 1: think of that. I think of the real deal, in

585
00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:08,680
Speaker 1: the real the real car. And I've heard, you know,

586
00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:11,240
Speaker 1: I've talked to guys that drive those top fueld directors

587
00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 1: that kind of look like long rails, you know, the

588
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:15,920
Speaker 1: real the thirty ft long ones or whatever the length is.

589
00:31:16,280 --> 00:31:18,320
Speaker 1: They said, it feels like you're sitting in a stoplight

590
00:31:18,560 --> 00:31:21,600
Speaker 1: and a semi hits you from behind at about two miles.

591
00:31:22,200 --> 00:31:24,000
Speaker 1: That's what it feels like when those things launched. So

592
00:31:24,240 --> 00:31:26,400
Speaker 1: that's got to be exactly what the pilots feel when

593
00:31:26,400 --> 00:31:28,600
Speaker 1: they launch off of a deck of an aircraft carry

594
00:31:28,600 --> 00:31:31,760
Speaker 1: It's it's even more exhilarating than a standard if you

595
00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:34,680
Speaker 1: can call it that, a standard runway takeoff because they

596
00:31:34,720 --> 00:31:38,800
Speaker 1: have so much greater distance and a much greater amount

597
00:31:38,800 --> 00:31:40,400
Speaker 1: of time to be able to get up to speed,

598
00:31:41,920 --> 00:31:45,200
Speaker 1: greater margin of area to suppose. Uh, speaking of margin

599
00:31:45,280 --> 00:31:48,200
Speaker 1: of error is something that uh, you have you have

600
00:31:48,560 --> 00:31:52,360
Speaker 1: very low margin of error is landing on an aircraft

601
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:55,840
Speaker 1: carry Oh yeah, okay. That's another really interesting aspect of

602
00:31:55,840 --> 00:31:57,959
Speaker 1: this whole thing is that you know, and it took

603
00:31:58,040 --> 00:32:00,000
Speaker 1: him a couple of months to figure out initially, remember,

604
00:32:00,040 --> 00:32:02,560
Speaker 1: oh yeah, they were thinking about it. But it's become

605
00:32:02,600 --> 00:32:06,800
Speaker 1: even more complex with jets. Yeah. So, Uh. The idea

606
00:32:07,600 --> 00:32:10,640
Speaker 1: of the method that the main method is used to

607
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:13,320
Speaker 1: stop aircraft, to help aircraft come to a stop when

608
00:32:13,320 --> 00:32:15,320
Speaker 1: they land on an aircraft carrier dates back to the

609
00:32:15,320 --> 00:32:19,440
Speaker 1: propeller plane days, but it has become increasingly important in

610
00:32:19,640 --> 00:32:22,520
Speaker 1: the jet world. As you were pointing out, Scott, Uh,

611
00:32:22,560 --> 00:32:27,000
Speaker 1: and it's using a tailhook. The tailhook is just what

612
00:32:27,080 --> 00:32:29,480
Speaker 1: it sounds like. You have the tail of your aircraft.

613
00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 1: There is a hook that descends down that can hook

614
00:32:34,680 --> 00:32:39,680
Speaker 1: onto something. In this case, we're talking about arresting wires.

615
00:32:40,120 --> 00:32:44,880
Speaker 1: These are very thick cables that stretch across the width

616
00:32:45,080 --> 00:32:49,840
Speaker 1: of the landing area of the flight deck, and your

617
00:32:49,920 --> 00:32:54,080
Speaker 1: goal as a pilot is to hit a specific arresting

618
00:32:54,120 --> 00:32:57,080
Speaker 1: people there there. In older ships there's series of four,

619
00:32:57,200 --> 00:33:00,080
Speaker 1: and more modern ones there are only three. So with

620
00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:02,800
Speaker 1: the older ships you were told to hit the third one. Now,

621
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:04,800
Speaker 1: isn't this strange? Now, this is the first time that

622
00:33:04,840 --> 00:33:06,800
Speaker 1: I had ever heard this when I was reading this article.

623
00:33:07,160 --> 00:33:08,960
Speaker 1: This is the house stuff Works article that we're looking

624
00:33:08,960 --> 00:33:11,880
Speaker 1: at here. The goal is to hit the third wire

625
00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:14,640
Speaker 1: in the set, and it's the safest, most effective wire

626
00:33:14,680 --> 00:33:17,680
Speaker 1: to hit. Now I was thinking, why, why is it

627
00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:20,040
Speaker 1: any worse than I can understand maybe not wanting to

628
00:33:20,080 --> 00:33:21,520
Speaker 1: hit the first one because it's too close to the

629
00:33:21,600 --> 00:33:23,440
Speaker 1: edge and get that. And the last one is kind

630
00:33:23,480 --> 00:33:25,400
Speaker 1: of a you better hit it or else you're going

631
00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:28,200
Speaker 1: over the edge. Um, But why not the second or

632
00:33:28,240 --> 00:33:30,080
Speaker 1: the third? I guess the third just shows some kind

633
00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:34,280
Speaker 1: of precision. Yeah. Well, and and if you were able

634
00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:37,240
Speaker 1: to consistently hit that third one, it would show that

635
00:33:37,320 --> 00:33:41,920
Speaker 1: you were a particularly skilled pilot, and thus you would

636
00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:44,800
Speaker 1: rise up the ranks more quickly because you were showing

637
00:33:44,840 --> 00:33:47,640
Speaker 1: that you had the precision, the skill, and the concern

638
00:33:47,760 --> 00:33:51,920
Speaker 1: necessary to continue in this If you were not consistently

639
00:33:51,960 --> 00:33:55,560
Speaker 1: hitting it, you might not be flying that much longer. Yeah,

640
00:33:55,600 --> 00:33:57,160
Speaker 1: I think that's what it's all about, though, I think

641
00:33:57,200 --> 00:33:58,880
Speaker 1: it's I think it's all about, you know, just being

642
00:33:58,920 --> 00:34:02,719
Speaker 1: able to have uh navy bragging rights. You can hit

643
00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:04,440
Speaker 1: the third wire every single time. What do you think

644
00:34:04,600 --> 00:34:08,719
Speaker 1: maybe maybe in the more current ones, the more modern ones,

645
00:34:08,719 --> 00:34:10,759
Speaker 1: where there's only three wires, you're supposed to hit the

646
00:34:10,800 --> 00:34:13,680
Speaker 1: second one, So again you're aiming for the one the

647
00:34:13,719 --> 00:34:16,680
Speaker 1: middle one, not the one on either end. Uh. Yeah.

648
00:34:16,719 --> 00:34:19,200
Speaker 1: And so what these wires do is they're actually connected

649
00:34:19,520 --> 00:34:24,640
Speaker 1: to giant hydraulic systems, and so when the the aircraft

650
00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:27,879
Speaker 1: hooks one of the wires, it obviously starts to pull

651
00:34:27,920 --> 00:34:30,560
Speaker 1: on that wire. The hydraulics act as sort of a

652
00:34:30,600 --> 00:34:34,600
Speaker 1: breaking mechanism. Now, when you watch one of these aircraft land,

653
00:34:35,000 --> 00:34:38,560
Speaker 1: it looks like it stops almost immediately. What's actually happening

654
00:34:38,640 --> 00:34:41,960
Speaker 1: is that it's not just a tot wire that's attached

655
00:34:41,960 --> 00:34:45,719
Speaker 1: to like anchored down to two stationary points, because that

656
00:34:45,760 --> 00:34:49,320
Speaker 1: would very likely cause damage to the aircraft or to

657
00:34:49,360 --> 00:34:53,200
Speaker 1: the aircraft carrier both and it could the person the

658
00:34:53,320 --> 00:34:56,920
Speaker 1: human beings. It's tough to stop immediately. Yeah, And there's

659
00:34:57,160 --> 00:35:02,080
Speaker 1: lots of footage, tragic footage of aircraft that were unable

660
00:35:02,280 --> 00:35:07,000
Speaker 1: to stop, uh, including ones where they had not yet

661
00:35:07,040 --> 00:35:11,120
Speaker 1: started using arresting wires. And you see, uh like there's

662
00:35:11,160 --> 00:35:14,120
Speaker 1: I saw one where it not only did skid continuously

663
00:35:14,760 --> 00:35:17,839
Speaker 1: down the landing strip, it collided with aircraft that were

664
00:35:17,880 --> 00:35:21,319
Speaker 1: further down. The aircraft carrier you're talking about prop planes, Yeah,

665
00:35:21,520 --> 00:35:25,719
Speaker 1: super dangerous uh stuff. In fact, um, there's a there's

666
00:35:25,760 --> 00:35:29,120
Speaker 1: an article I read called several Reasons Why Aircraft Carriers

667
00:35:29,160 --> 00:35:33,239
Speaker 1: are Super Dangerous by Sam Lagron, who worked in the

668
00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:39,640
Speaker 1: Naval Institute, and uh, he talked about how how how

669
00:35:39,640 --> 00:35:42,960
Speaker 1: precise you had to be, how closely these things could

670
00:35:43,040 --> 00:35:47,520
Speaker 1: uh come between, you know, success and failure, and it's

671
00:35:47,560 --> 00:35:50,960
Speaker 1: pretty terrifying. It actually mentions that, uh that if you

672
00:35:51,000 --> 00:35:54,200
Speaker 1: were flying some of the larger aircraft like the Navy's

673
00:35:54,280 --> 00:35:58,680
Speaker 1: E two Hawkeye, Let's say that you don't hit that

674
00:35:58,840 --> 00:36:01,560
Speaker 1: third cave, when you don't hit the fourth cable, what

675
00:36:01,640 --> 00:36:03,600
Speaker 1: you have to do then is you have to throttle

676
00:36:03,719 --> 00:36:07,440
Speaker 1: up full speed so that you can fly up and

677
00:36:07,440 --> 00:36:10,440
Speaker 1: then come back around and try again. Can I tell

678
00:36:10,480 --> 00:36:12,640
Speaker 1: you something I think that even if you hit that

679
00:36:12,719 --> 00:36:15,080
Speaker 1: third wire, or you hit the second wire, the first wire,

680
00:36:15,239 --> 00:36:17,799
Speaker 1: I think, you still go full throttle. Um. This is

681
00:36:17,840 --> 00:36:19,720
Speaker 1: which is so weird because you would think that, Okay,

682
00:36:19,719 --> 00:36:22,239
Speaker 1: it's it's snagged, it's it's secure, But they don't know

683
00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:24,080
Speaker 1: that yet. They don't know if it's gonna skip over it,

684
00:36:24,080 --> 00:36:26,400
Speaker 1: if it's gonna if it's got a tenuous grasp on

685
00:36:26,440 --> 00:36:28,440
Speaker 1: itt that you know it's gonna let go. Um. So

686
00:36:28,520 --> 00:36:31,359
Speaker 1: they're they're trained that when that contact is made, even

687
00:36:31,360 --> 00:36:33,720
Speaker 1: though you feel a grab, you still go full throttle,

688
00:36:33,840 --> 00:36:36,799
Speaker 1: just for a brief second, just in case, because that's

689
00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:39,240
Speaker 1: your last chance. Otherwise, if you're going over the edge slow,

690
00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:41,879
Speaker 1: you better hit the ejector because that's your only way

691
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:43,640
Speaker 1: out because these otherwise you're going in the train. Yeah,

692
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:47,040
Speaker 1: and it always ends up upside down. Yeah. So uh,

693
00:36:47,400 --> 00:36:51,400
Speaker 1: you know the the the standard procedure is that you

694
00:36:51,440 --> 00:36:53,160
Speaker 1: need to take off again. It's called you know, you're

695
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 1: you have to be you have to be a bolter.

696
00:36:55,320 --> 00:36:58,400
Speaker 1: You have to bolt a bolter. Yeah, they're calling bolters

697
00:36:58,440 --> 00:37:01,520
Speaker 1: where you you end up having to take back off again. Well,

698
00:37:01,560 --> 00:37:04,560
Speaker 1: here's the thing. Depending on the size of the aircraft,

699
00:37:04,680 --> 00:37:07,439
Speaker 1: you might not have a very large margin of error.

700
00:37:07,480 --> 00:37:10,280
Speaker 1: For example, the Navy's E two Hawkeye, the width margin

701
00:37:10,320 --> 00:37:16,359
Speaker 1: of error can be a foot twelve inches of whether like,

702
00:37:16,440 --> 00:37:19,879
Speaker 1: you have that twelve inches of space to throttle up

703
00:37:20,080 --> 00:37:23,040
Speaker 1: before you are not going to be fast enough to

704
00:37:23,120 --> 00:37:27,440
Speaker 1: get take off again and if it again, yeah, twelve

705
00:37:27,480 --> 00:37:29,480
Speaker 1: and well, I mean it is incredible. You think about

706
00:37:29,520 --> 00:37:35,320
Speaker 1: the amazing uh skill and encourage it takes to handle

707
00:37:35,400 --> 00:37:38,680
Speaker 1: this kind of aircraft. We'll be back with more about

708
00:37:38,760 --> 00:37:49,520
Speaker 1: aircraft carriers in just a moment. Imagine that you've got

709
00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 1: like a two by four, all right, and then you've

710
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:54,600
Speaker 1: got a ruler, so that's not as wide as your

711
00:37:54,719 --> 00:37:57,400
Speaker 1: two bike board, and you lay the ruler down and

712
00:37:57,440 --> 00:38:01,399
Speaker 1: the ruler represents the landings drip on your aircraft carrier knee.

713
00:38:01,400 --> 00:38:04,040
Speaker 1: The two by four itself is just barely longer than

714
00:38:04,080 --> 00:38:07,600
Speaker 1: the ruler. Uh. And and so those were the early

715
00:38:07,640 --> 00:38:10,360
Speaker 1: aircraft carriers, right. You had just kind of a straight

716
00:38:10,520 --> 00:38:13,080
Speaker 1: strip that was where you would land and take off,

717
00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:15,359
Speaker 1: and it will also be where you're you would be

718
00:38:15,440 --> 00:38:18,719
Speaker 1: mustering your aircraft. Uh. Which means that there were a

719
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:22,799
Speaker 1: lot of potential places where you could have collisions if

720
00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:25,600
Speaker 1: things did not go. Well, the British came up with

721
00:38:25,640 --> 00:38:29,719
Speaker 1: a brilliant way of getting around this. They decided to

722
00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:34,600
Speaker 1: tilt the landing strip by fourteen degrees so that it

723
00:38:34,680 --> 00:38:37,840
Speaker 1: was not a you know, it didn't go the length

724
00:38:37,960 --> 00:38:40,640
Speaker 1: of the ship. And by tilt, I don't mean that

725
00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:44,560
Speaker 1: it was tilted on uh like, it wasn't like a

726
00:38:44,600 --> 00:38:49,840
Speaker 1: cantid surface. No, it was just it was just instead

727
00:38:49,840 --> 00:38:52,279
Speaker 1: of it being a straight road, imagine that you just

728
00:38:52,520 --> 00:38:56,920
Speaker 1: turn that off the line of the keel exactly. So

729
00:38:57,080 --> 00:38:59,560
Speaker 1: that meant that you could you could have a mustering

730
00:38:59,640 --> 00:39:02,319
Speaker 1: area for aircraft that was not directly in the path

731
00:39:02,360 --> 00:39:05,399
Speaker 1: of where aircraft were landing. The British were the ones

732
00:39:05,440 --> 00:39:06,960
Speaker 1: who came up with that. The British were the ones

733
00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:09,080
Speaker 1: that came up with the arresting wires, and then the

734
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:12,399
Speaker 1: United States and other nations said, this is a really

735
00:39:12,440 --> 00:39:16,040
Speaker 1: good idea that we are going to also employ. Yeah, yeah,

736
00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:19,719
Speaker 1: ways of making something that is no matter how you

737
00:39:19,760 --> 00:39:23,359
Speaker 1: slice it, incredibly dangerous less. So you know, there's some

738
00:39:23,440 --> 00:39:25,480
Speaker 1: that even have a almost like I think they call

739
00:39:25,520 --> 00:39:27,839
Speaker 1: a ski jump at the end. It looks like a ramp.

740
00:39:27,880 --> 00:39:29,920
Speaker 1: It ramps up at the end so that you get

741
00:39:29,960 --> 00:39:32,279
Speaker 1: just that little bit more of a lift at the end,

742
00:39:32,320 --> 00:39:35,320
Speaker 1: I suppose puts you in the right direction, I would imagine.

743
00:39:35,360 --> 00:39:37,920
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, and I've also seen ones like you know,

744
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:42,000
Speaker 1: they had other methods of trying to uh capture aircraft

745
00:39:42,080 --> 00:39:45,560
Speaker 1: that might not have um have hit the arresting wires

746
00:39:45,600 --> 00:39:48,319
Speaker 1: just right, including things like giant nets that would help

747
00:39:48,400 --> 00:39:51,560
Speaker 1: slow down aircraft, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. It

748
00:39:51,600 --> 00:39:53,719
Speaker 1: seems like that would bring its own problems. Yeah, to

749
00:39:53,760 --> 00:39:55,960
Speaker 1: illustrate how dangerous this is again, going back to that

750
00:39:56,040 --> 00:40:02,000
Speaker 1: several reasons article I mentioned, um lak Own quotes a

751
00:40:02,040 --> 00:40:07,200
Speaker 1: statistic that really is eye opening. Between nineteen forty eight

752
00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:11,799
Speaker 1: and nine, the number of US sailors and marines that

753
00:40:11,920 --> 00:40:16,239
Speaker 1: died in and around aircraft carriers was eight thousand, five

754
00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:19,960
Speaker 1: hundred in forty years. Eight thousand, five hundred people dying.

755
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:23,359
Speaker 1: Now that includes that includes combat, but that actually makes

756
00:40:23,400 --> 00:40:28,760
Speaker 1: a much smaller number than accidents. Kidding, Yeah, so okay,

757
00:40:28,760 --> 00:40:30,759
Speaker 1: I can I can mention a couple of accidents if

758
00:40:30,760 --> 00:40:32,319
Speaker 1: you want me to chuck about them. All right. So,

759
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:34,799
Speaker 1: during the nineteen sixties there was kind of a bleak

760
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:37,960
Speaker 1: time for the U. S. Navy. They suffered three fires

761
00:40:37,960 --> 00:40:41,440
Speaker 1: aboard aircraft carriers in the nineteen sixties, and these you

762
00:40:41,440 --> 00:40:43,839
Speaker 1: can what's interesting about this is you can go back

763
00:40:43,880 --> 00:40:45,759
Speaker 1: and look at these. You can look at photographs because

764
00:40:45,760 --> 00:40:48,439
Speaker 1: they were, you know, filmed in a lot of cases, UM,

765
00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:52,600
Speaker 1: and they use these these disasters as training films for

766
00:40:52,840 --> 00:40:56,080
Speaker 1: current military members on aircraft what what not to do

767
00:40:56,160 --> 00:40:57,960
Speaker 1: and what to do because they got a little better

768
00:40:58,000 --> 00:41:00,359
Speaker 1: at it here. But UM, going back to and I'll

769
00:41:00,360 --> 00:41:03,040
Speaker 1: just listen these kind of quickly, but just off the

770
00:41:03,080 --> 00:41:07,279
Speaker 1: coast of Vietnam in nineteen sixty six, on October the

771
00:41:07,360 --> 00:41:10,560
Speaker 1: USS or riskin e UM c v A thirty four,

772
00:41:10,600 --> 00:41:14,680
Speaker 1: if you're interested in that designation, the hall designation. UM.

773
00:41:14,760 --> 00:41:16,359
Speaker 1: There are a couple of guys that were loading some

774
00:41:16,480 --> 00:41:19,360
Speaker 1: flares into a locker below deck, and one of the

775
00:41:19,360 --> 00:41:22,560
Speaker 1: flares went off and there were six hundred and fifty

776
00:41:22,640 --> 00:41:25,879
Speaker 1: other flares in the locker they were loading, and the guy,

777
00:41:26,280 --> 00:41:27,799
Speaker 1: I don't know if he panicked or what, but when

778
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:29,480
Speaker 1: the flare went off, he shut the door real quick.

779
00:41:29,480 --> 00:41:31,959
Speaker 1: He didn't try to grab that one flare out and

780
00:41:32,320 --> 00:41:35,400
Speaker 1: the result was a I think it was like a

781
00:41:35,560 --> 00:41:38,560
Speaker 1: huge fire that killed something like forty four men. Forty

782
00:41:38,600 --> 00:41:41,239
Speaker 1: four crew members on board. So that was there was

783
00:41:41,280 --> 00:41:44,080
Speaker 1: extensive damage to the ship. UM. And then just a

784
00:41:44,160 --> 00:41:46,759
Speaker 1: year later in July of nineteen sixty seven, again off

785
00:41:46,800 --> 00:41:52,239
Speaker 1: the coast of Vietnam, Uh, the USS Forest All this yeah,

786
00:41:52,280 --> 00:41:55,600
Speaker 1: this is now this was an accidental rocket deployment UM

787
00:41:55,680 --> 00:41:58,120
Speaker 1: that slammed into a parked A four that was on

788
00:41:58,160 --> 00:42:00,840
Speaker 1: the deck and then that spread to other aircraft on

789
00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:03,520
Speaker 1: the deck and you know, of course bombs began to

790
00:42:03,560 --> 00:42:05,360
Speaker 1: explode all over the place. On top of that, you

791
00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:07,560
Speaker 1: can imagine what's going on. This is this is a

792
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:12,040
Speaker 1: thirteen hour fire that crew that killed one and thirty

793
00:42:12,080 --> 00:42:14,640
Speaker 1: four crew members as a huge fire. There were there

794
00:42:14,680 --> 00:42:16,880
Speaker 1: were twenty one aircraft destroyed during this one. And this

795
00:42:16,920 --> 00:42:19,000
Speaker 1: one is the one that I think they uses the

796
00:42:19,040 --> 00:42:21,719
Speaker 1: training film of what can go wrong. And then in

797
00:42:21,840 --> 00:42:25,279
Speaker 1: nineteen nine to kind of round out the decade with

798
00:42:25,320 --> 00:42:28,319
Speaker 1: another disaster here uh the U. S. S. Enterprise, you know,

799
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:34,080
Speaker 1: the first nuclear powered UM carrier had US at a

800
00:42:34,160 --> 00:42:38,520
Speaker 1: terrible fire as well. UM similar to the Forest hell fire. UM,

801
00:42:38,640 --> 00:42:40,959
Speaker 1: but this was a rocket that ignited and hit another

802
00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:43,359
Speaker 1: aircraft and you know, due to exhaust heat I think

803
00:42:43,400 --> 00:42:45,680
Speaker 1: is what set this one off. But it took four

804
00:42:45,680 --> 00:42:48,919
Speaker 1: hours to extinguish that one and crew members were killed

805
00:42:49,000 --> 00:42:52,480
Speaker 1: during that and fifteen aircraft were destroyed. So they had

806
00:42:52,520 --> 00:42:56,520
Speaker 1: their fair share of you know, hard knocks in nineteen sixty,

807
00:42:56,920 --> 00:43:00,520
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, throughout the whole decade. And I know that

808
00:43:00,760 --> 00:43:03,120
Speaker 1: you know, safety has improved over the over the decades,

809
00:43:03,200 --> 00:43:05,840
Speaker 1: but there's probably still a lot of small things that

810
00:43:05,880 --> 00:43:08,920
Speaker 1: happen on board apparently. I mean, if eight thousand people

811
00:43:09,440 --> 00:43:12,200
Speaker 1: have died on these these are dangerous places to be, yeah,

812
00:43:12,320 --> 00:43:15,319
Speaker 1: I mean, well even if like there there can be

813
00:43:15,440 --> 00:43:19,560
Speaker 1: things that have nothing to do with the the flight

814
00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:21,920
Speaker 1: deck or the hangar or the aircraft or any of

815
00:43:21,960 --> 00:43:25,680
Speaker 1: the weaponry. Even I mean, you're just talking about a

816
00:43:25,719 --> 00:43:31,960
Speaker 1: confined environment where you have several thousand people existing there,

817
00:43:32,000 --> 00:43:35,720
Speaker 1: there are plenty of opportunities for accidents that you know,

818
00:43:35,840 --> 00:43:37,799
Speaker 1: there's same sort of accents that you could encounter in

819
00:43:37,840 --> 00:43:41,440
Speaker 1: any other environment. So the figures that I mentioned, you know,

820
00:43:41,480 --> 00:43:43,640
Speaker 1: not all of those were necessarily the result of some

821
00:43:43,680 --> 00:43:46,800
Speaker 1: sort of catastrophic accident like the ones we've been talking about,

822
00:43:46,880 --> 00:43:50,720
Speaker 1: but it does illustrate that this is an environment that

823
00:43:50,719 --> 00:43:53,880
Speaker 1: that is by its very nature dangerous. Yeah, I mean,

824
00:43:53,920 --> 00:43:55,600
Speaker 1: you can fall and bump your head, you can choke

825
00:43:55,640 --> 00:43:59,400
Speaker 1: on something in the yeah, exactly right, and and stuff

826
00:43:59,440 --> 00:44:01,600
Speaker 1: like that, you'd fall all overboard. A friend of mine

827
00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:04,160
Speaker 1: served in the Navy. He didn't serve a board an

828
00:44:04,080 --> 00:44:07,160
Speaker 1: aircraft carrier, but one of the one of the descriptions

829
00:44:07,160 --> 00:44:09,840
Speaker 1: he gave me, I imagined there were probably lots of

830
00:44:10,040 --> 00:44:14,239
Speaker 1: bumps and bruises whenever sea's got particularly rough, because he

831
00:44:14,280 --> 00:44:19,120
Speaker 1: talked about, how, uh, if you're going above or below

832
00:44:19,360 --> 00:44:22,640
Speaker 1: whatever deck you're on in a ship, we call them decks.

833
00:44:22,640 --> 00:44:26,040
Speaker 1: They're not floors. So if you're on a deck and

834
00:44:26,080 --> 00:44:29,000
Speaker 1: you need to go up or down, you you climb

835
00:44:29,080 --> 00:44:32,800
Speaker 1: what is almost a ladder the the they are sets

836
00:44:32,800 --> 00:44:36,279
Speaker 1: of stairs technically, but they are so steep that it's

837
00:44:36,320 --> 00:44:41,440
Speaker 1: practically a ladders at a premium exactly. And if the

838
00:44:41,520 --> 00:44:45,920
Speaker 1: seas are really really rough, the world around you was moving,

839
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:48,399
Speaker 1: and he talked about how, yeah, there were times where

840
00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:51,000
Speaker 1: he would start to climb and because of the way

841
00:44:51,040 --> 00:44:53,640
Speaker 1: the ship would roll, he would end up being at

842
00:44:53,640 --> 00:44:57,200
Speaker 1: the top of the stairs way faster than he had anticipated.

843
00:44:57,760 --> 00:44:59,719
Speaker 1: Like he would take a step and then the ship

844
00:44:59,760 --> 00:45:01,880
Speaker 1: would role as he was stepping, and it's kind of

845
00:45:01,920 --> 00:45:06,359
Speaker 1: like when you would jump on a trampoline just right, Yeah,

846
00:45:06,400 --> 00:45:11,399
Speaker 1: you suddenly end up much higher up than you expected. Um, yeah,

847
00:45:11,400 --> 00:45:14,040
Speaker 1: it could be actually terrifying. I have I have one

848
00:45:14,160 --> 00:45:17,080
Speaker 1: really cool story of an accident that was averted by

849
00:45:17,120 --> 00:45:22,200
Speaker 1: someone who was in a different accident that was the

850
00:45:22,320 --> 00:45:25,480
Speaker 1: thankfully tragedy was also averted. This guy just had the

851
00:45:25,520 --> 00:45:30,960
Speaker 1: best luck. Captain Jim Lovell this. If the name sounds familiar,

852
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:34,200
Speaker 1: it's probably because you've watched Apollo thirteen. He was the

853
00:45:34,239 --> 00:45:38,719
Speaker 1: commander of the Apollo thirteen space mission. He also, in

854
00:45:38,840 --> 00:45:42,640
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty four was flying a mission in a McDonald

855
00:45:43,160 --> 00:45:49,719
Speaker 1: F two H Banshee night fighter jet. Yeah yeah, cool jet.

856
00:45:49,800 --> 00:45:52,200
Speaker 1: But he had an issue in that um there was

857
00:45:52,200 --> 00:45:56,160
Speaker 1: an electrical failure on his plane and all his instruments

858
00:45:56,160 --> 00:45:59,920
Speaker 1: went dead. And it's at night, and he has to

859
00:46:00,120 --> 00:46:03,799
Speaker 1: find the aircraft carrier by vision, like you have to

860
00:46:03,920 --> 00:46:06,680
Speaker 1: find it, like you know. He didn't have any electric

861
00:46:06,920 --> 00:46:10,320
Speaker 1: electronics to tell him where anything was because the electrical failure,

862
00:46:11,440 --> 00:46:14,319
Speaker 1: So he had to find the carrier the U. S. S.

863
00:46:14,360 --> 00:46:19,279
Speaker 1: Shangri law. And the way he found it was he

864
00:46:19,360 --> 00:46:25,920
Speaker 1: saw a luminescent trail from luminescent algae that was left

865
00:46:25,960 --> 00:46:28,799
Speaker 1: in the wake of the carrier and followed it to

866
00:46:28,840 --> 00:46:31,080
Speaker 1: the carrier so that he could land successful. And it's

867
00:46:31,120 --> 00:46:34,279
Speaker 1: so smart. What that guy hasn't lived through or he

868
00:46:34,280 --> 00:46:39,719
Speaker 1: hadn't lived through, it's pretty crazy. Yeah. So yeah, I

869
00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:43,359
Speaker 1: think we've really driven it home. But yeah, dangerous location. Right.

870
00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:46,319
Speaker 1: One of the things that we haven't talked about yet.

871
00:46:46,400 --> 00:46:51,959
Speaker 1: It's also on the flight deck is the island. Yeah. Yeah,

872
00:46:52,000 --> 00:46:54,920
Speaker 1: this is important. This is where the I guess all

873
00:46:54,960 --> 00:46:59,200
Speaker 1: the radar capabilities and the satellite. Yeah, the crew of

874
00:46:59,320 --> 00:47:03,480
Speaker 1: the the commanders are walking around up there, um telling

875
00:47:03,480 --> 00:47:05,200
Speaker 1: people what to do. So this is this is like

876
00:47:05,239 --> 00:47:08,480
Speaker 1: the tower structure that you would see on the top

877
00:47:08,600 --> 00:47:13,120
Speaker 1: of an aircraft carrier. Um. It's the command center and

878
00:47:13,440 --> 00:47:15,879
Speaker 1: it it's the command center for the flight deck as

879
00:47:15,880 --> 00:47:19,839
Speaker 1: well as the general ship. Right, and it has uh

880
00:47:20,040 --> 00:47:22,960
Speaker 1: lots of different decks to it as well. It is

881
00:47:23,160 --> 00:47:25,680
Speaker 1: about a hundred fifty ft tall that's about forty six

882
00:47:26,960 --> 00:47:29,960
Speaker 1: but only about twenty ft wide or six ms wide

883
00:47:30,040 --> 00:47:34,239
Speaker 1: at the base of the island. That's also because you

884
00:47:34,239 --> 00:47:35,920
Speaker 1: don't want to take up too much space on the

885
00:47:35,920 --> 00:47:37,319
Speaker 1: flight deck. You want to have as much of that

886
00:47:37,360 --> 00:47:40,960
Speaker 1: space available as possible. Uh. And this is where you

887
00:47:41,000 --> 00:47:45,440
Speaker 1: have lots of different decks that have important elements to it.

888
00:47:45,480 --> 00:47:47,359
Speaker 1: So at the very top you've got that array of

889
00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:51,480
Speaker 1: satellite dishes, radar dishes, that kind of stuff. Below that

890
00:47:51,640 --> 00:47:57,040
Speaker 1: is the primary flight control or price fly. The Navy

891
00:47:57,120 --> 00:48:00,080
Speaker 1: has lots of fun names for everything, like like know

892
00:48:00,120 --> 00:48:03,719
Speaker 1: when we mentioned about the arresting wires and landing in them. Yes,

893
00:48:03,800 --> 00:48:06,560
Speaker 1: I watched a documentary where the guy said, yeah, they

894
00:48:06,560 --> 00:48:10,160
Speaker 1: call that landing in the spaghetti when you're when you're

895
00:48:10,239 --> 00:48:12,600
Speaker 1: landing in the cables, landing in the spaghetti. Good term

896
00:48:12,600 --> 00:48:15,279
Speaker 1: makes sense, right, I mean it really does, And it

897
00:48:15,320 --> 00:48:17,600
Speaker 1: always makes me wonder if he's just if they're just

898
00:48:17,680 --> 00:48:19,400
Speaker 1: yanking our chains at that point, like what can we

899
00:48:19,440 --> 00:48:22,919
Speaker 1: tell them? And they're like, they're watch they're gonna start

900
00:48:23,000 --> 00:48:27,160
Speaker 1: using that. Yeah, they're kind of call landings alright, so

901
00:48:27,200 --> 00:48:30,080
Speaker 1: blow the price fly if that's what they call it.

902
00:48:30,520 --> 00:48:33,359
Speaker 1: Um is the bridge and that's the ship's command center. Yes,

903
00:48:33,440 --> 00:48:35,920
Speaker 1: the bridge. Now this is where I am in my

904
00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:41,160
Speaker 1: familiar element because I love ships. I love ships, and

905
00:48:41,200 --> 00:48:45,120
Speaker 1: the bridge is that command center where the captain oversees

906
00:48:45,280 --> 00:48:48,879
Speaker 1: the control of the ship. Uh. Now keep in mind

907
00:48:48,960 --> 00:48:52,760
Speaker 1: that aircraft carriers typically are part of a larger group

908
00:48:52,840 --> 00:48:55,160
Speaker 1: of ships that they don't they aren't traveling on their own.

909
00:48:55,200 --> 00:48:58,480
Speaker 1: They have escort ships. So that you have generally speaking,

910
00:48:58,640 --> 00:49:04,480
Speaker 1: several in your group. Now, a captain only commands one ship.

911
00:49:04,840 --> 00:49:07,640
Speaker 1: That is, the captain's responsibility is to that ship and

912
00:49:07,680 --> 00:49:10,680
Speaker 1: that ship alone. So the captain is on the bridge,

913
00:49:11,400 --> 00:49:15,600
Speaker 1: um and can That's where you have your your helmsman,

914
00:49:15,640 --> 00:49:19,680
Speaker 1: who is controlling the steering of the the vehicle, the

915
00:49:19,760 --> 00:49:23,160
Speaker 1: aircraft carrier. You have another one, the lee helmsman, who

916
00:49:23,239 --> 00:49:26,800
Speaker 1: controls the since commands down to engineering for the speed,

917
00:49:27,120 --> 00:49:29,440
Speaker 1: so you know, Mr Scott, down and engineering can give it,

918
00:49:29,480 --> 00:49:32,280
Speaker 1: give it or more powder? Captain was the worst Scottish

919
00:49:32,280 --> 00:49:36,040
Speaker 1: accent I've ever tried. Um. You you have also the

920
00:49:36,080 --> 00:49:38,600
Speaker 1: quartermaster of the watch who is keeping track of the

921
00:49:38,680 --> 00:49:45,800
Speaker 1: navigation information. Uh and uh. Below that you have a

922
00:49:46,000 --> 00:49:49,120
Speaker 1: deck where you have the flag bridge. That's where the

923
00:49:49,160 --> 00:49:53,160
Speaker 1: admiral is. Now. The admiral is in charge of all

924
00:49:54,000 --> 00:49:57,760
Speaker 1: the vessels in that group, not just the aircraft carrier.

925
00:49:57,760 --> 00:50:00,560
Speaker 1: So the captain commands the aircraft carrier. The admiral has

926
00:50:00,680 --> 00:50:04,520
Speaker 1: the the job of of administering for the entire group

927
00:50:04,520 --> 00:50:07,480
Speaker 1: of shops, and then below the flag bridge is just

928
00:50:07,640 --> 00:50:10,400
Speaker 1: a various operational centers. I mean these are these are

929
00:50:10,400 --> 00:50:14,400
Speaker 1: where they monitor the deck, control and launch operations and

930
00:50:14,480 --> 00:50:16,600
Speaker 1: stuff like that. I mean, let's say it's a love again.

931
00:50:16,680 --> 00:50:19,360
Speaker 1: Some of the names, like the aircraft handling officers sometimes

932
00:50:19,360 --> 00:50:22,920
Speaker 1: called the handler or mangler. That's a big difference between

933
00:50:22,920 --> 00:50:25,239
Speaker 1: the handler and the mangler, if you ask me. My

934
00:50:25,239 --> 00:50:29,000
Speaker 1: my favorite description in this how Stuff Works article, which

935
00:50:29,040 --> 00:50:31,920
Speaker 1: by the way, is fantastic. I highly recommend if you're

936
00:50:31,960 --> 00:50:33,719
Speaker 1: interested in this to go to how Stuff Works and

937
00:50:33,760 --> 00:50:38,279
Speaker 1: look up how aircraft carriers work. My favorite description is

938
00:50:38,360 --> 00:50:42,120
Speaker 1: how the aircraft handler. Their job is to track which

939
00:50:42,400 --> 00:50:44,960
Speaker 1: aircraft are on the flight deck, which ones are in

940
00:50:45,000 --> 00:50:47,920
Speaker 1: the hangar, which ones are out you know, have flown

941
00:50:47,920 --> 00:50:51,239
Speaker 1: off um. And they do so using something called the

942
00:50:51,320 --> 00:50:54,040
Speaker 1: Uiji board. Oh yes, this is like a cool toy.

943
00:50:54,360 --> 00:50:57,319
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, this is really neat. Yeah it's it's it's

944
00:50:57,360 --> 00:51:01,040
Speaker 1: a transparent table that has out lines of the flight

945
00:51:01,120 --> 00:51:04,280
Speaker 1: deck and the hangar deck and little cutouts that represent

946
00:51:04,360 --> 00:51:07,560
Speaker 1: each aircraft. And they're to scale, so the bigger aircraft

947
00:51:07,640 --> 00:51:09,719
Speaker 1: have bigger cutouts than the smaller aircraft. Well, they have to.

948
00:51:10,080 --> 00:51:11,600
Speaker 1: They wouldn't know how many would fit and where they

949
00:51:11,600 --> 00:51:13,560
Speaker 1: would exactly. It's at all the scale, so they know

950
00:51:13,640 --> 00:51:16,080
Speaker 1: exactly how to place everything and exactly where it fits out.

951
00:51:16,080 --> 00:51:18,279
Speaker 1: So I like this. I like this. I like it

952
00:51:18,320 --> 00:51:22,600
Speaker 1: when things are measured and and organized like I enjoyed this.

953
00:51:22,719 --> 00:51:25,040
Speaker 1: I like this procedure. It looks like it sounds to

954
00:51:25,080 --> 00:51:28,120
Speaker 1: me like like it's it's it's the super coolest version

955
00:51:28,160 --> 00:51:30,600
Speaker 1: of risk. Does you know you're moving? All right? I

956
00:51:30,960 --> 00:51:33,120
Speaker 1: need to move these aircraft from my hangar to the

957
00:51:33,120 --> 00:51:36,279
Speaker 1: flight deck, and then I move these little models from

958
00:51:36,320 --> 00:51:38,240
Speaker 1: this part of the etching to that part of etching

959
00:51:38,280 --> 00:51:40,480
Speaker 1: to represent that. And not only that. You look at

960
00:51:40,480 --> 00:51:43,399
Speaker 1: the window and it happens in real life, A little

961
00:51:43,440 --> 00:51:46,319
Speaker 1: real plane on a real ship. The best again, the

962
00:51:46,320 --> 00:51:49,239
Speaker 1: best game of risk ever. Right. Uh. Then you also

963
00:51:49,320 --> 00:51:52,600
Speaker 1: have the combat direction center. Obviously that would be very

964
00:51:52,600 --> 00:51:55,960
Speaker 1: important whenever the ship is actively involved in combat. You've

965
00:51:56,000 --> 00:51:59,399
Speaker 1: got the galley deck that's immediately below the flight deck.

966
00:51:59,440 --> 00:52:02,000
Speaker 1: You've got the hanger deck, which is lower down that's

967
00:52:02,000 --> 00:52:05,440
Speaker 1: where all the aircraft arts. It's actually several decks tall.

968
00:52:05,600 --> 00:52:08,759
Speaker 1: It's called the hangar deck, but it's actually multiple decks

969
00:52:08,760 --> 00:52:11,480
Speaker 1: tall because you have to accommodate those aircraft. By the way,

970
00:52:11,760 --> 00:52:14,120
Speaker 1: do yourself a favor and get on Google images and

971
00:52:14,160 --> 00:52:17,719
Speaker 1: look at a hanger hangar deck at some point. It's amazing,

972
00:52:17,800 --> 00:52:19,840
Speaker 1: it really is. It's so cool the way they they

973
00:52:19,880 --> 00:52:21,880
Speaker 1: position all the planes. I mean, they're all put in

974
00:52:21,920 --> 00:52:24,319
Speaker 1: there exactly in precisely the right way, and this is

975
00:52:24,360 --> 00:52:26,840
Speaker 1: where they move them in and out on the elevators.

976
00:52:26,840 --> 00:52:28,319
Speaker 1: You have the lift systems to get them up to

977
00:52:28,320 --> 00:52:31,040
Speaker 1: the flight deck. It's really it's a neat space. It's

978
00:52:31,040 --> 00:52:34,319
Speaker 1: almost like, um, it's like several warehouses is what it

979
00:52:34,320 --> 00:52:37,719
Speaker 1: looks like, linked together, and then they store this just

980
00:52:37,800 --> 00:52:40,680
Speaker 1: an incredible arsenal of planes in there. Some of these

981
00:52:40,719 --> 00:52:43,600
Speaker 1: can have like eighty or more aircraft aboard them. Yeah,

982
00:52:43,600 --> 00:52:45,200
Speaker 1: how do you how do you figure out how to

983
00:52:45,239 --> 00:52:48,759
Speaker 1: move around eighty aircraft without bumping into each other all

984
00:52:48,760 --> 00:52:52,360
Speaker 1: the time. And they even have uh door doors that

985
00:52:52,400 --> 00:52:56,560
Speaker 1: can close between different chambers. Obviously that is a safety precaution.

986
00:52:56,640 --> 00:53:00,360
Speaker 1: Let's say that the aircraft carrier has entered combat. You

987
00:53:00,400 --> 00:53:04,360
Speaker 1: want to be able to shut close off one version

988
00:53:04,480 --> 00:53:07,040
Speaker 1: one part of the hangar bay from the others if

989
00:53:07,440 --> 00:53:10,400
Speaker 1: there were an enemy attack that that pierced part of it,

990
00:53:10,440 --> 00:53:13,760
Speaker 1: because you want to control the spread of fire, So

991
00:53:14,160 --> 00:53:16,640
Speaker 1: you might be able to close one of those doors

992
00:53:16,640 --> 00:53:20,120
Speaker 1: and save three quarters of your aircraft in the case

993
00:53:20,160 --> 00:53:22,359
Speaker 1: of catastrophe, or you know, even if it were just

994
00:53:22,640 --> 00:53:25,759
Speaker 1: an accident and not an act of combat, you would

995
00:53:25,760 --> 00:53:27,759
Speaker 1: want that ability. And then at the back end of that,

996
00:53:28,080 --> 00:53:31,080
Speaker 1: the of the hangar area is an open section at

997
00:53:31,080 --> 00:53:32,600
Speaker 1: the at the very aft end of the ship, a

998
00:53:32,719 --> 00:53:35,040
Speaker 1: very back end if they can open up a door

999
00:53:35,800 --> 00:53:38,120
Speaker 1: and they can test jet engines off the back of

1000
00:53:38,160 --> 00:53:41,440
Speaker 1: the of the boat, only safe place to do it

1001
00:53:41,480 --> 00:53:44,600
Speaker 1: because it's open to the air. Yeah. That's uh, that's

1002
00:53:44,760 --> 00:53:49,160
Speaker 1: just aft of the aircraft inter Intermediate Maintenance Division or

1003
00:53:49,200 --> 00:53:53,160
Speaker 1: ai m D shops. That's where they would do the

1004
00:53:53,200 --> 00:53:55,319
Speaker 1: basic maintenance that would be needed to make sure the

1005
00:53:55,320 --> 00:54:00,640
Speaker 1: aircraft remain in you know, fliable condition. Uh. Yeah. And

1006
00:54:00,680 --> 00:54:02,920
Speaker 1: again all of this is necessary just for the basic

1007
00:54:03,000 --> 00:54:06,600
Speaker 1: function of the aircraft carrier as its purpose as a

1008
00:54:06,640 --> 00:54:09,640
Speaker 1: military vehicle. Then on top of that you have all

1009
00:54:09,719 --> 00:54:14,719
Speaker 1: the mess halls, the galleys, the sleeping arrangements, which are

1010
00:54:15,000 --> 00:54:20,120
Speaker 1: cozy at best. I hope you enjoyed that classic episode

1011
00:54:20,120 --> 00:54:24,200
Speaker 1: on how aircraft carriers work. As was indicated, we will

1012
00:54:24,200 --> 00:54:27,440
Speaker 1: be back next week with part two of this classic episode,

1013
00:54:27,960 --> 00:54:30,600
Speaker 1: and in the meantime, if you have suggestions for topics

1014
00:54:30,640 --> 00:54:33,200
Speaker 1: that should cover in future episodes of tech Stuff, please

1015
00:54:33,200 --> 00:54:35,719
Speaker 1: reach out to me on Twitter. The handle for the

1016
00:54:35,760 --> 00:54:38,640
Speaker 1: show is tech Stuff H s W and I'll talk

1017
00:54:38,640 --> 00:54:47,000
Speaker 1: to you again really soon. Tech Stuff is an I

1018
00:54:47,080 --> 00:54:50,600
Speaker 1: Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio,

1019
00:54:50,920 --> 00:54:54,120
Speaker 1: visit the i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever

1020
00:54:54,200 --> 00:54:55,720
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.