WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: How Aircraft Carriers Work - Part One 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:07.760 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio. 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:14.840 Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:17.480 job in Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:20.799 and how the tech are youa This time for a 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:25.560 classic episode of tech Stuff. This episode originally published April six, 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:31.160 twenty It is called How Aircraft Carriers Work? Part One. 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:34.360 I bet you can't guess what next week's classic episode 0:00:34.400 --> 0:00:37.080 is gonna be. So we're gonna be talking a lot 0:00:37.240 --> 0:00:40.519 about the current state of the art, which is the 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:44.519 Nimits class aircraft carrier. We'll talk about the next generation, 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:48.240 we'll talk about previous generations. But to start it all off, 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:53.840 I wanted to explain how amazing, how old this this 0:00:54.000 --> 0:01:01.160 idea is. It actually pre dates controlled flight. Yes right, 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:03.000 you know, I don't know a whole lot about this, 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:05.240 because we did. We were digging into aircraft carriers and 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:07.040 just kind of as a side note of some some 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:09.840 article that I was reading, it had mentioned that in 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:14.880 the late nineteenth century they were using ships to launch 0:01:15.400 --> 0:01:20.839 manned balloons right for reconnaissance, U missions and things like that. 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:22.880 It was always it was always about reconnaissance, and it 0:01:23.000 --> 0:01:27.320 was about monitoring the enemy. Right, because in the nineteenth century, 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:31.319 the navies around the world, we're relying heavily upon battleship 0:01:31.520 --> 0:01:36.720 class dreadnoughts, these enormous ships with heavy weaponry on them 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:40.480 that would batter one another. That was how naval battles 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:45.080 were decided back in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, 0:01:45.480 --> 0:01:48.840 and so much so that any idea, like any thought 0:01:48.920 --> 0:01:52.040 of using air support was mainly just to get a 0:01:52.080 --> 0:01:55.040 look around and see where the enemy was. Like that 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:58.000 was the only purpose, right. They were not thought of 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:00.880 as this would be We're gonna weapon eyes balloons. It 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:03.640 was more like, we need eyes in the sky so 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:05.680 that we know where the enemy might be. Well, even 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:08.480 during the American Civil War they use balloons, uh, they would. 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:11.639 They would flow a balloon from their camp to check 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:13.360 out what the enemy was doing, you know, on the 0:02:13.400 --> 0:02:15.799 other side of the hill, and then bring it back down. 0:02:15.840 --> 0:02:18.200 But then the intent was never to to fire from 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:19.840 up there anything. It was just to keep an eye 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:22.480 on the on the enemy exactly exactly. And that's the 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.600 same thing is true with the earliest days of aircraft 0:02:25.639 --> 0:02:28.440 carriers in the in the respect the way we think 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:31.720 of them now, what surprised me was that it did 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:34.840 not take long at all from the moment that we 0:02:34.919 --> 0:02:39.520 have controlled flight that is a heavier than air aircraft 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:42.720 that can fly through the control of a human being, 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:47.639 and the first attempts at making an aircraft carrier. So 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:53.600 I know that there is some disagreement about who was 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:57.360 truly responsible for the first heavier than air aircraft. We're 0:02:57.360 --> 0:03:00.600 gonna go with the right brothers for this one. And 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:06.240 they flew at Kittie Hawk in nineteen o three. It 0:03:06.360 --> 0:03:11.280 took less than a decade before the United States military 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:14.840 started saying, maybe we can launch one of these suckers 0:03:14.880 --> 0:03:18.119 from a boat. Yeah, not a bad idea. Yeah, I mean, 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:19.800 that's that's always the kind of the way it goes 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:22.920 right with the military. They're thinking, they're thinking, well, you 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:25.839 know what, this could be a devastating machine of war. 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:28.480 Exactly where can we make this work for us? And 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:31.320 that's that's exactly what they did. They said, well, let's, uh, 0:03:31.400 --> 0:03:33.240 let's try to figure out a way to make it. Well, 0:03:33.240 --> 0:03:37.200 they need a nice big takeoff and landing area, but well, 0:03:37.240 --> 0:03:38.960 there's no way really to do that on a boat 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:41.200 unless we build something that's maybe made out of wood, 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:43.600 that's a huge flat deck. Let's try that. And they 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:46.600 did and it worked. Yeah, it was. It was crazy. 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:50.800 They built They built a temporary wooden deck on top 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:54.720 of the USS Birmingham in nineteen ten. This was truly 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:58.040 just an experiment, right, it was just a proof of concept, 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:01.839 and they found a break A man, or some might 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:08.120 say lunatic to attempt to fly a tiny biplane, a 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:14.280 Curtis biplane fifty horsepower, fifty horsepower, a fifty horse power biplane. 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:19.440 Can you imagine you're rolling down this wooden this wooden 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:22.440 platform that's built on top of a battleship. It's the 0:04:22.440 --> 0:04:24.960 battleship was not meant to do this, right, it was 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:27.600 they had to shore up all this area to create 0:04:27.839 --> 0:04:31.200 a a wooden structure for you to roll across, not 0:04:31.560 --> 0:04:34.080 necessarily knowing if you would be able to reach the 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:36.599 right speed to be able to take off, or if 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:40.039 you would just plunge off the end into the ocean. Yeah, yeah, 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:42.240 this is a this is a scary prospect having for 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:44.080 this guy. I mean his name is he was actually 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:48.520 a civilian pilot. His name was Eugene Burton Eli And uh, 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:50.599 this is so strange the way this is written, and 0:04:50.720 --> 0:04:52.560 I'll read it the way it's written, and then I'll 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:55.960 explain because it sounds so weird. It says on November four, 0:04:57.320 --> 0:05:01.680 a twenty four year old civilian, civilian in pilot again Eugene, 0:05:02.000 --> 0:05:04.640 took off in a fifty horsepower Curtis plane from the 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:07.240 bow of the Birmingham, which is a you know, wooden 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:10.840 platform cruiser again and later landed a Curtis model D 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:15.760 on Pennsylvania in on January eighteenth of nineteen eleven. So 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:19.000 those of you that were listening while, we'll realize that 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:21.520 it wasn't a two month flight and he didn't change 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:24.240 planes in mid air. They just hadn't figured out the 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:27.279 landing bit of this yet. Yeah, So so this happens 0:05:27.279 --> 0:05:29.680 like two months apart or three months apart maybe, so, 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:33.359 ye know what happened was they did the first one, uh, 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:36.520 and then the second, the second attempt. The second test 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:40.000 took place in San Francisco Bay. That's where the Pennsylvania 0:05:40.120 --> 0:05:45.240 was anchored, and he took off from a from from 0:05:45.279 --> 0:05:48.599 a landing strip on on land, took off, flew out 0:05:48.640 --> 0:05:51.760 to the ship, landed on it, stayed for an hour, 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:56.240 took off from the ship and landed back on the mainland. Interesting, 0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:58.919 so that's actually the first time that both both of 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:02.119 those things happened at one time. That the initial uh, 0:06:02.160 --> 0:06:04.440 you know, the initial takeoff I guess was it was 0:06:04.520 --> 0:06:06.120 just a one time deal and they just wanted to 0:06:06.160 --> 0:06:08.200 see if they could do it. They didn't even really 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:10.400 considered landing at this point. I'm sure they were thinking 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:12.960 about it, but they weren't willing willing to risk it yet. 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:15.200 They needed a couple more months to to develop a 0:06:15.240 --> 0:06:16.920 way to do it, or maybe to look into the 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:20.039 stats of how long it took a Curtis Model D 0:06:20.640 --> 0:06:23.360 to stop actually come to a stop, right, Because, yeah, 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:25.960 if it's longer than the boat is, you've got yourself 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:28.560 a problem. As it turns out, we would come up 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:31.560 with ways to address that problem. Now here's the interesting 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:34.679 thing to me. The U. S. Military was very quick 0:06:34.760 --> 0:06:37.679 to test out this idea, but they were not quick 0:06:38.000 --> 0:06:41.160 to implement it. Uh. The Navy at the time was 0:06:41.279 --> 0:06:43.720 largely of the United States Navy, I should say, it 0:06:43.839 --> 0:06:46.479 was largely of the opinion that this was still the 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:52.080 domain of the big battleships, and soon the cruisers would follow. 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:55.839 Cruisers would be slightly smaller slightly more maneuverable, faster ships 0:06:55.880 --> 0:06:58.520 than battleships. And we're talking about World War one era, 0:06:58.920 --> 0:07:02.039 yeah ships, yeah, pre World War One, into World War One, 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:06.000 the United States was not terribly concerned with adding air 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:12.240 power to that. However, the British were definitely interested and 0:07:12.280 --> 0:07:16.160 they began to innovate in this space early early on. UH. 0:07:16.200 --> 0:07:18.560 They began to experiment with navy ships. First, they were 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:23.440 using essentially a version of of water landing planes like seaplanes, 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:26.600 but they were those are very slow there. Once they 0:07:26.960 --> 0:07:30.000 landing and taking off the slow and getting them aboard 0:07:30.040 --> 0:07:32.960 a ship required the use of cranes. So it was 0:07:33.360 --> 0:07:35.920 it was not a good process if you were under 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:40.640 the possibility of being under fire from an enemy quick exactly. 0:07:40.760 --> 0:07:45.880 So they started looking into other UH possibilities and it 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:49.960 was the British Navy in nineteen eighteen that commissioned the 0:07:50.080 --> 0:07:53.960 first true practical aircraft carrier. It was the h M 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:57.840 S Argus. Interesting and so the Argus is our first 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:01.040 practical aircraft carrier. It had a large flat deck, which 0:08:01.080 --> 0:08:06.360 became standard for all aircraft carriers following ever since UM 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:08.960 and that allowed for the landing and taking off of aircraft. 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:12.800 It was also the first that had an electrically powered 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:16.680 elevator to move aircraft from the hangar deck to the 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:19.760 flight deck. Very smart and it's something we still see today. Yes, 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:23.480 and that means that you can actually carry a lot 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:25.400 more vehicles. Plus you don't have to worry like if 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:28.120 if really bad weather is coming in, you can house 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:30.440 them in the hangar deck as to as opposed to 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:32.760 having them have to secure them to the flight deck, 0:08:33.559 --> 0:08:35.600 which could be pretty dangerous to put. You know, these 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:40.120 are huge vehicles. So that lays the groundwork for the 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:45.920 beginning of aircraft uh aircraft carrier history. But we're gonna 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:49.120 skip ahead to how they work today and then later 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:53.280 on I'll tell you more about the various classes of 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:57.200 aircraft carriers that the United States specifically has used over 0:08:57.280 --> 0:08:59.800 the history of the Navy. Can I can I maybe 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:02.160 just one thing here, and maybe I'm jumping too far ahead, 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:06.720 but during World War One their use was extremely limited. 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:09.160 They really didn't even put any kind of emphasis on 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:11.680 it at all. It really wasn't part of World War 0:09:11.720 --> 0:09:15.880 One strategy in any way. But during World War Two 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:20.440 they played a critical role. Instrumental, yeah, extremely critical because 0:09:20.480 --> 0:09:22.360 and this is I found this interesting. There was a 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:25.280 side note about one of the battles um that was 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:27.880 fought during World War Two, and it said that the 0:09:27.880 --> 0:09:31.200 Battle of the Coral Sea became the first sea battle 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:35.199 in history in which neither opposing fleet saw the other one. 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:37.960 That is so interesting. I mean, imagine that there's a 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:40.520 there's a sea battle happening where you don't see the 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:43.240 other ship because the battle is being fought by the 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:45.400 planes in the air that they're launching towards each other. 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:48.040 I mean, it's it's such a strange thought that before 0:09:48.080 --> 0:09:50.960 that that never happened. Exactly. You had you had planes 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:54.319 that were dropping bombs, They're dropping torpedoes, so the planes 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:58.160 were the weapons, right instead of instead of ships firing 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:01.840 guns at one another, there s launching planes at one another. 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:03.600 And this is so far apart they cannot see each 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:05.520 And this is so interesting because I mean, if you 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:07.880 think about it, and again you have to put yourself 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:09.679 in the mind frame, you know that they were back 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:12.679 in the nineteen forties. This is brand new because if 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:16.240 you wanted to get a plane over a sea battle first, 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:18.560 you probably wouldn't know where it's happening, and you wouldn't 0:10:18.559 --> 0:10:20.480 be able to communicate that and get that coordinated in 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:23.800 time before something has already happened. The other thing is 0:10:23.840 --> 0:10:25.880 that the range was just too great for them, because 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:28.560 fighter planes are often you know, weighted down with lots 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:32.240 of lots of artillery, and they don't have great range. 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:35.640 They have a shorter range than plane that's designed to 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:38.320 fly long distances that don't carry a bunch of you know, 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:42.120 extra weapons, you know, guns, whatever. Um. So this is 0:10:42.160 --> 0:10:43.720 a this is a brand new idea that we're going 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:46.640 to take the planes to the battle and and you know, 0:10:46.920 --> 0:10:49.400 launch them from there instead of having to kind of 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:52.240 you know, keep them far far away and then maybe 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:54.199 they'll make it, maybe they won't. If they decide that 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:56.439 they can't you know, hold out long enough to get there, 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:58.240 they'll have to turn back. It's just it was a 0:10:58.320 --> 0:11:01.440 completely different way of thinking and and and it's just 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:03.559 such a fascinating time in history when you look back 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:06.040 at some of the side notes of all these battles 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:08.360 and the way that they were fought. It's just completely 0:11:08.400 --> 0:11:11.280 different from World War One, completely different. Well, really, what 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:14.679 what had happened was even during the World War One era, 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:19.040 the navy navies around the world looked at aircraft carriers 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:23.440 again as a means of carrying reconnaissance vehicles. Planes were 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:27.559 not terribly useful in warfare, yet at that point they 0:11:27.559 --> 0:11:30.480 were very useful for finding out where the enemy fleets 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:32.800 were so that you could direct your fleets and do 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:37.280 the most damage possible. And what what really changed was 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:39.680 that you know, you would think of like an aircraft 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:43.000 carrier was an escort to a battleship, and the battleships 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:44.839 were your your big boys. Those were the ones that 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:49.520 actually did the damage until the attack on Pearl Harbor. Now, 0:11:49.520 --> 0:11:53.200 when the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor, the ships that were 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:57.000 uh that were docked at Pearl Harbor were battleships, but 0:11:57.080 --> 0:12:00.920 the aircraft carriers were out on maneuvers. So the Japanese 0:12:00.920 --> 0:12:04.520 attack affected the battleships but not the aircraft carriers, which 0:12:04.520 --> 0:12:09.000 meant that the United States was forced to reevaluate their 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:12.960 their strategies and they were forced to use aircraft carriers 0:12:13.000 --> 0:12:15.920 as weapons as opposed to a means of just reconnaissance. 0:12:16.240 --> 0:12:18.160 And that's what led to these things like the Battle 0:12:18.200 --> 0:12:21.160 of the Coral Sea, where we end up getting this 0:12:21.320 --> 0:12:26.400 effect of of of aircraft carriers being used effectively as 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:28.360 weapons of war. Well also, and I think this goes 0:12:28.400 --> 0:12:31.000 without saying, that the Japanese fleet was launched from an 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:34.400 aircraft carrier as well, so that the the the squadrons 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:37.560 that attacked Pearl Harbor came from an aircraft carrier that 0:12:37.720 --> 0:12:42.000 was what several miles off, but you know, stealthily moved 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:44.280 in and uh and and and was able to retreat 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:47.080 back to the homeland. Right. It was incredibly effective. It 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:49.559 was a devastating attack, as we all know. And so 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:53.160 this was really what ended up changing the way wars 0:12:53.160 --> 0:12:57.280 were fought, uh for for several decades. And so it 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:01.079 was it was something that that proved the aircraft carriers 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:06.560 importance as a vehicle in in an arsenal Right, as 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:08.680 you just mentioned, you know, the you know, it was 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:11.680 that the aircraft carrier was the support vehicle or the yeah, 0:13:11.679 --> 0:13:15.560 the the add on vehicle, the um the chaperone I 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:18.000 guess should go along, right, And then the roles reversed. 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:20.120 I mean then it became that you know, the destroyers 0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:23.880 and the cruisers and all those were um tagging along 0:13:23.880 --> 0:13:27.160 with the aircraft carrier because that was the big guns, right, Yeah, 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:29.800 you had those there to protect the aircraft carrier, because 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:33.080 the aircraft carrier had all the really valuable aircraft on 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:37.240 it that could do devastating damage very very quickly. So 0:13:37.679 --> 0:13:41.120 it was interesting to see such a dramatic shift, and 0:13:41.280 --> 0:13:43.400 it was. It was a dramatic shift that, by the way, 0:13:43.760 --> 0:13:47.280 did not happen smoothly. That it took the work of 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:51.800 lots of people in the Navy to convince other branches 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:54.079 of the military that this, in fact was the best 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:56.920 way of going forward. We'll talk a little bit about 0:13:56.960 --> 0:14:02.120 some of the um interesting battles in the United States 0:14:02.120 --> 0:14:05.040 that had nothing to do with using weapons or fighting 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:07.480 an enemy. It was really the battles being fought between 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:10.920 different branches of the military, particularly the air Force and 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:15.559 the Navy. There's a there's a story about the aircraft 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:19.360 carrier that wasn't. It was one that was almost but 0:14:19.400 --> 0:14:22.680 then wasn't. But let's talk a little bit about how 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:27.440 these massive and I really do mean massive machines work. 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:30.280 Now you have seen one in person, I have been 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:32.720 on the Midway. Okay, i've seen one in person. I've 0:14:32.720 --> 0:14:35.320 never been on one. Yeah, you gotta pack a lunch 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:36.880 if you're gonna walk from one side to the other. 0:14:36.960 --> 0:14:38.840 They are big. They are huge. I mean we're talking 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:41.960 like I'm just gonna ballpark these numbers. So we're talking 0:14:42.000 --> 0:14:45.320 like more than a thousand feet long. The deck is 0:14:45.360 --> 0:14:48.200 measured in acres, something like four or five acres four 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:51.520 and half acres um. They are like it's like taking 0:14:51.520 --> 0:14:53.640 a building. I think I read somewhere that it was like, 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:58.240 imagine the which building is in New York, the Chrysler 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:01.520 building in New York until the the Chrysler building on 0:15:01.520 --> 0:15:04.080 its side. Put it in water, and that's the length 0:15:04.080 --> 0:15:06.520 of the built of the of the ship. But then 0:15:07.160 --> 0:15:10.000 even greater than that. It's like it's twenty stories tall 0:15:10.320 --> 0:15:13.400 when it's floating. Yeah, yeah, it's got it's you know, 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:15.760 if you go from the keel of the ship, the 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:18.240 keel is the backbone of the ship, the part that's 0:15:19.200 --> 0:15:21.880 at the very bottom center, all the way to the 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:25.720 very top. You're talking like the equivalent of twenty four 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:29.560 stories amazing. I mean, it's it's a huge, huge machine 0:15:29.600 --> 0:15:33.200 with thousands of parts, two thousands, well billion of billion 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:35.000 parts or something like that is what I read somewhere. 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:36.320 I don't know if that's true or not, but I 0:15:36.360 --> 0:15:38.840 mean they literally said it's a billion parts on on 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:42.760 these ships. And it's it's truly like running a city 0:15:42.880 --> 0:15:45.320 because there are thousands of crew members. We'll talk about 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:47.560 numbers when we get to it here, but yeah, there 0:15:47.600 --> 0:15:49.520 are thousands of people on board and they have to 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:53.240 do everything, you know, from collecting the garbage to um 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:55.880 making sure that you know, people are fed, and of 0:15:55.920 --> 0:16:00.760 course fighting war, maybe potentially running just you know, doing 0:16:00.960 --> 0:16:03.000 regular missions. I guess, you know, if they're they're just 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:05.960 stationed off the coast of you know, whatever country, they 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:08.720 just have to make sure that everything is operating smoothly. Um. 0:16:08.760 --> 0:16:11.600 There's just every concern you would have with a with 0:16:11.640 --> 0:16:14.400 a small city is happening on that ship and there 0:16:14.400 --> 0:16:15.960 has to be somebody to take care of it. A 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:20.240 small city that relies on nuclear power, because that makes 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:24.360 it even more complicated. So all modern supercarriers use nuclear 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:28.920 power to generate steam. The ones that we talked about 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:32.880 today have two nuclear power plants on them. Uh that 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:37.840 are that's actually different from previous ones. Earlier supercarriers had 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:42.080 more nuclear power plants, not fewer, but more because they 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:44.680 had a bunch of smaller ones. But there were there 0:16:44.680 --> 0:16:47.760 are as many as eight, yes, with like four different 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:51.440 shafts that steam would go through to turn propellers, so 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:54.360 you you generate steam. I mean really, if you talk 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:56.840 about old aircraft carriers, you're still talking steam. But in 0:16:56.840 --> 0:16:59.320 those days that you're talking about a boiler that's being uh, 0:16:59.400 --> 0:17:04.080 that's being uh heated through using fossil fuels. Today we're 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:06.720 talking about using nuclear power to heat up water to 0:17:06.800 --> 0:17:10.520 turn it to steam. It turns steam steam turbines, which 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:15.160 do two things. Two main things. It generates the energy 0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:18.440 needed to turn the massive propellers. We're talking like more 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:22.600 than twenty feet in diameter, right, These are huge propellers 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:27.160 that that uh that propel the ship through the water, 0:17:27.600 --> 0:17:31.480 and they are used to generate electricity on board the ship. 0:17:31.640 --> 0:17:33.400 I've got a little bit more info on that, if 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:35.760 you like, we can talk about it. I just want 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:37.600 to just kind of throw some stuff in here, and 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:39.159 you're gonna hear a bunch of notes shuffling because I 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:41.879 got notes everyone too. This is the first for me 0:17:41.880 --> 0:17:44.199 because usually I have my computer in here, but actually 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:47.080 I'm using the stuff called paper on low tech. Like, yeah, 0:17:47.080 --> 0:17:48.920 that's kind of crazy. I do it all the time, 0:17:49.240 --> 0:17:52.399 low tech low tech. Alright, So, um, the US Enterprise. 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:55.920 USS Enterprise was which was built in nineteen fifty eight, well, 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:59.320 actually built between n and nineteen sixty one. This is 0:17:59.320 --> 0:18:02.359 a big ship. This is an enterprise class ship because 0:18:02.400 --> 0:18:04.919 there was a previous ship that was also known as 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:07.480 the U. S. S Enterprise. And by the way, neither 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:10.119 of these were the ones that carried Kirk and Spock. 0:18:11.680 --> 0:18:14.040 Good point. I'm glad. I'm really glad you pointed that out. Yeah, 0:18:14.760 --> 0:18:16.720 although I think they did visit it and Star Trek 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:20.120 for the voyage home. Maybe maybe they went because they said, Captain, 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:25.399 we found the vessel and it's the Enterprise. Anyway, Okay, 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:27.720 I'm amused by this. Alright, So al right, it was 0:18:27.720 --> 0:18:30.520 in service between nine and two thousand and twelve, so 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:33.639 it's only recently decommissioned. UM. This was the first, the 0:18:33.760 --> 0:18:37.159 very first nuclear powered aircraft carrier, and it had eight 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:40.399 what they called A two W reactors. Now the A 0:18:40.560 --> 0:18:42.320 two W. I was wondering what the heck that stood for, 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:44.680 so I looked it up. UM. It's pretty simple. Actually, 0:18:44.720 --> 0:18:47.399 A is just aircraft carrier too. Stands for the second 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:52.840 generation designed by that that UM, that particular UM designer. 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:56.080 I guess that contractor and W stands for Westinghouse and 0:18:56.119 --> 0:18:59.200 that was the contractor, so A two W. So that's 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:03.479 the second generation from the Westinghouse aircraft carrier power source, 0:19:04.080 --> 0:19:07.080 all right, and UM used in Okay, so of course 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:09.040 it was used in you know, the first you know, 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:11.440 this is the first nuclear powered and I'm gonna say 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:16.679 nuclear nuclear nuclear nuclear, yeah, nuclear nuclear, I might say it, 0:19:16.720 --> 0:19:19.399 but you know, get ready for that. But it actually 0:19:19.720 --> 0:19:24.000 it UM provided power for four propulsion plans. So each 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:27.960 each propulsion plant had two reactors that were tied to it. 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:32.199 And Okay, according according to the way that it's all 0:19:32.240 --> 0:19:36.159 laid out, I guess they each powered two different chefts. 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:38.400 So let's say there's the one A shaft, the one 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:40.639 B cheft, the two A shaft, the two B seft, 0:19:40.720 --> 0:19:42.959 And that's kind of the way it worked, right, all right, 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:45.800 And I'll try to try to walk through this carefully 0:19:45.800 --> 0:19:47.320 here so we don't miss too much. I know it's 0:19:47.320 --> 0:19:51.159 going to be a simplified version. UM. But each one 0:19:51.160 --> 0:19:54.640 of these was capable of running on just one reactor 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:57.639 if it had to, but two were required for full power. 0:19:57.680 --> 0:20:00.000 So if they're gonna steam ahead, it was a top 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:02.520 be like thirty knots maybe, which is about which is 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:06.400 about thirty four point five mile. Actually, the Navy has 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:11.040 been very careful to never divulge the the specifics. There 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:13.840 were some sources I saw where they said they could 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:17.159 move in excess of forty knots, which is incredible speed. 0:20:17.400 --> 0:20:21.040 At that speed, you can water ski behind the aircraft 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:24.639 carrier without skis would bear with the water ski behind it. 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:26.359 I would like to try that. That would be kind 0:20:26.359 --> 0:20:28.920 of exciting. Yeah, all right, So, UM, so you could 0:20:29.040 --> 0:20:31.639 run on one, you know, one reactor per cheft, but 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:33.439 they said it was you know too are required for 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:36.640 full power and you know, for plane launching capability, which 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:39.360 we'll talk about why that's important in a little while. UM. 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:42.200 Now again the simplified version of how these reactors work, 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:43.800 if you if you want to get into it or not, 0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:47.080 I don't know. UM it's they're actually fueled by enriched 0:20:47.240 --> 0:20:50.639 uranium two thirty five. And all this is is foreign 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:52.679 to me. I'm like that I'm speaking another language, so 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:56.600 bear with me. But they use um something called halfnium 0:20:56.720 --> 0:20:59.320 control rods, you know, karactor, and that's how that's how 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:03.080 they control um, just how much scheme they're creating able 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:06.159 to to submerse or or pull them out to a 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:10.439 level that reaches what they're called the criticality point. And 0:21:10.480 --> 0:21:13.080 I hope I'm saying that right. But that's the point 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:18.040 which nuclear fission reactors reach a place where they're self sustaining. Yes, 0:21:18.160 --> 0:21:21.840 they they create their own energy. What's happening is that 0:21:21.920 --> 0:21:27.439 when when one of those atoms decays, it generates some 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:33.200 very high energy particles, which when they collide with other atoms, 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:37.040 cause them to decay, and then you get a self 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:40.160 sustaining reaction, which, by the way, if you aren't able 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:44.960 to contain, becomes a meltdown. So so anytime we're talking 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:50.160 nuclear power with fission, it's a very uh scientific approach, 0:21:50.200 --> 0:21:53.000 a delicate balance to make sure that you have the 0:21:53.040 --> 0:21:55.480