Just saw the USS Kitty Hawk sail into town

[sailnavy]

Earendil - Having been on deployment during 9-11, on an aircraft carrier, that really isn't a funny comment, especially given that I had family flying that day in the US. It was truly an odd reversal of expected circumstances.

I can't say that it isn't a tactic employed by terrorist groups, but definitely not funny.

Nice to see the Sh***y Kitty still gettin around. I was fortunate and only was on the Nukes, as Air Conditioning and Fresh Water are in better supply.

 

[AlBDamned]

Earendil - Having been on deployment during 9-11, on an aircraft carrier, that really isn't a funny comment, especially given that I had family flying that day in the US. It was truly an odd reversal of expected circumstances.

I can't say that it isn't a tactic employed by terrorist groups, but definitely not funny.

Nice to see the Sh***y Kitty still gettin around. I was fortunate and only was on the Nukes, as Air Conditioning and Fresh Water are in better supply.

So can you guys who've worked on these things tell us all a little bit about life on them? Are the pilots all pretentious a/holes like Top Gun would have us believe?! Is it really cramped? Do you get sick of it? Out of 5,000 people on-board, how many do you actually know and know well? What about leisure time, how rowdy do you all get when on shore leave?!

So many questions... I'm always fascinated by jobs that are so far removed from my own that they almost seem like different universe. (I mean this in a good way - that may read as if I'm being condescending and I'm not). A friend of mine is a flight attendant and has the craziest schedule of flying round the world. LA one week, London the next, Tokyo the next... It's worlds apart from being stuck behind a desk all day.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

US "super carriers" - the most powerful warships on earth...I still haven't gotten over my awe of these ships. Kitty Hawk is the last of the non-nuclear carriers. Take a good look at her, she will likely be decomissioned next year.

This thread is well timed - I was in NYC yesterday, standing on top of the Empire State building, and a I saw an aircraft carrier docked on the Hudson near where the USS Intrepid is usually found. But Intrepid is in dry dock currently and this carrier was not an Essex-class ship...it was smaller, more modern looking and had a ski jump. It looked like one of the the Invincible class British carriers!

Sure enough, I bumped into a bunch of Brits in naval uniforms later in Battery Park. Their hats read "HMS Illustrious".

Very, Very Cool!

 

[Earendil]

Earendil - Having been on deployment during 9-11, on an aircraft carrier, that really isn't a funny comment,

Than it's a good thing nothing in my most implied humor or that I thought it was in the least bit comical.

especially given that I had family flying that day in the US. It was truly an odd reversal of expected circumstances.

I can't say that it isn't a tactic employed by terrorist groups, but definitely not funny.

I'm a relative pacifist. Few things get me riled up. But any %^&*er who deliberately goes around people willing to protect what it is you're after, and instead harms the unprotected in an attempt to demoralize the soldiers is a... I honestly have no words. Especially not ones that can be used on this board

Now... *breaths* back on topic!! Anyone else ever served on an Aircraft Carrier and care to share some interesting tidbits that we drybacks may not know? What makes life on one completely different than any other ship?

 

[AlBDamned]

US "super carriers" - the most powerful warships on earth...I still haven't gotten over my awe of these ships. Kitty Hawk is the last of the non-nuclear carriers. Take a good look at her, she will likely be decomissioned next year.

This thread is well timed - I was in NYC yesterday, standing on top of the Empire State building, and a I saw an aircraft carrier docked on the Hudson near where the USS Intrepid is usually found. But Intrepid is in dry dock currently and this carrier was not an Essex-class ship...it was smaller, more modern looking and had a ski jump. It looked like one of the the Invincible class British carriers!

Sure enough, I bumped into a bunch of Brits in naval uniforms later in Battery Park. Their hats read "HMS Illustrious".

Very, Very Cool!

Sweet, although I always think the English carriers look like decrepit old barges in comparison to to the US ones - even the "regular-fueled" 50-year-old Kitty Hawk!

Edit: Also, why do the UK carriers have a ski jump? Even the new UK ones - The Queen Elizabeth Class - look to have one? The US vessels seem to do jus fine with catapults?

 

[Counterfit]

We get all our skiing fun taken care of in the Appalachians and Rockies.

 

[AlBDamned]

We get all our skiing fun taken care of in the Appalachians and Rockies.

Don't be so smug - the UK has that Scottish Ski resort you know...

 

[DZ/015]

so 85 hours of schoolwork and studying each week probably isn't that far off...So I went from having no mandatory study hours to getting 30-5's, which means that I had to study 30 hours a week in the building, with a minimum of 5 hours on the nights preceding school days. No fun.

I don't think I ever put in more than 65 hours myself.

Mando 30, man that must have sucked. At least you never had to do ordered hours (I hope). I felt sorry for those guys.

Yeah, I'm a former nuke. The memory still has not faded, I and I got out 17 years ago.

 

[Lord Blackadder]

Edit: Also, why do the UK carriers have a ski jump? Even the new UK ones - The Queen Elizabeth Class - look to have one? The US vessels seem to do just fine with catapults?

American (and current French) carriers use catapaults for big conventional takeoff and landing (CTOL) aircraft while the British, Spanish and Italian navies use ski jumps for their smaller vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft, all variants of the Harrier.

You could use a ski jump for CTOL aircraft, but it seems that US designers are satisfied with the performance of the catapaults. The British pioneered the use of the ski jump on aircraft carriers.

 

[StealthRider]

CTOL also allows for heavier aircraft, like our late Tomcat, the C-2 and E-2 series, etc. And it's not like power is in short supply on one of the nukes...

 

[Lord Blackadder]

One thing to note: the next-gen British carriers are designed to be fully convertible to full-CTOL (or, more correctly, CATOBAR - Catapault Assisted Takeoff But Arrested Landing).

So they could, in the future, operate the CTOL version of the F35, or even a navalized version of the Typhoon.

 

[Peace]

You guys really should try looking at an Aircraft Carrier battlegroup from the deck of a Destroyer in said group like I did..Big fun!

Interesting stats for ya.

Expected life of a ship during a sea battle ( circa 1970 ) :

Escort ( now called a frigate ) : 3 min.--enough time to allow destroyers to get off a few rounds
Destroyer : 7 minutes -- enough time to allow a cruiser to get of a few missiles
Cruiser : -- 15 minutes --enough time to allow a carrier to get planes off the deck
Carrier : --- 30 minutes --enough time to destroy a country

This was taught to us in the Navy.Over and over and over.Constantly and daily.

 

[Counterfit]

CTOL also allows for heavier aircraft, like our late Tomcat, the C-2 and E-2 series, etc. And it's not like power is in short supply on one of the nukes...

I'd like to see how the electromagnetic cats perform on the Ford class.

 

[SMM]

I was stationed on the "Chitty Kitty" January 1972-October 1972 (jeez - was it really that long ago?). I kinda got screwed. I had just completed 20 months in the Mekong Delta. If you had < 1 year left, you got a discharge. I missed it by 2 weeks. But, they did try to give you orders to where you wanted to go. So, I picked Whidbey Island Naval Air Station. That is close to home. So, I ended up in an A-6 squadron. Three months later, we packed our bags and joined the Kitty in San Diego. A month later I was off the coast of Vietnam, for another 10 months.

I joined the Navy to stay out of Vietnam. Instead I spent 30 out of 48 months there.

For those who marvel at the size of an American Attack Carrier, let me tell you as someone who lived on one; they get real small, real fast.

I must admit, it was nice to get some news about the old girl again. Thanks!

 

[StealthRider]

You guys really should try looking at an Aircraft Carrier battlegroup from the deck of a Destroyer in said group like I did..Big fun!

Escort ( now called a frigate ) : 3 min.--enough time to allow destroyers to get off a few rounds
Destroyer : 7 minutes -- enough time to allow a cruiser to get of a few missiles
Cruiser : -- 15 minutes --enough time to allow a carrier to get planes off the deck
Carrier : --- 30 minutes --enough time to destroy a country

This was taught to us in the Navy.Over and over and over.Constantly and daily.

Probably a bit different now that the Burke-class destroyers are pressing into cruiser turf (and, in many cases, replacing them, as in the case of the decommissioning of the Vincennes (CG-49)).

\Surface Warfare FTW!

 

[echeck]

For those who marvel at the size of an American Attack Carrier, let me tell you as someone who lived on one; they get real small, real fast.

My brother wrote almost those exact words to me in a letter when he was on the Kitty Hawk. I remember he said it was overwhelming at first, but after a few months you realize you're on a tiny metal floating island.

My brother was only on the Kitty Hawk for about eight months though. His job was to direct aircraft out on the deck, and the engine exhaust ended up making him extremely ill. He spent two months in a Singapore hospital before coming home with a medical discharge.

 

[SMM]

You guys really should try looking at an Aircraft Carrier battlegroup from the deck of a Destroyer in said group like I did..Big fun!

Interesting stats for ya.

Expected life of a ship during a sea battle ( circa 1970 ) :

Escort ( now called a frigate ) : 3 min.--enough time to allow destroyers to get off a few rounds
Destroyer : 7 minutes -- enough time to allow a cruiser to get of a few missiles
Cruiser : -- 15 minutes --enough time to allow a carrier to get planes off the deck
Carrier : --- 30 minutes --enough time to destroy a country

This was taught to us in the Navy.Over and over and over.Constantly and daily.

When the North invaded South Vietnam in 1972, we sent 6 carrier battlegroups into the fray. One morning, standing on the flightdeck, I saw the Connie, Enterprise, America, Coral Sea and (I think) the JFK on all points of the horizon. That, plus all of their escorts and screening vessels. It was quite a sight!

 

[dmw007]

From the pictures that ship looks amazing. I can only imagine how it must look up close in person.

 

[SMM]

My brother wrote almost those exact words to me in a letter when he was on the Kitty Hawk. I remember he said it was overwhelming at first, but after a few months you realize you're on a tiny metal floating island.

My brother was only on the Kitty Hawk for about eight months though. His job was to direct aircraft out on the deck, and the engine exhaust ended up making him extremely ill. He spent two months in a Singapore hospital before coming home with a medical discharge.

I hope you are proud of him. Working on a carrier flightdeck, directing airplanes, is not for the faint of heart, or the foolish. It is one of the most hazardous non-combat jobs in the military. Any mistake is almost always fatal. I worked in avionics (Radar and Electronic Countermeasures). My reason for being on the flightdeck, during operations, was dubious at best. My systems either worked, or did not. I could not repair them there, so I just confirmed, "Yes, it failed". Then the pilot would decide whether to abort, or not. My partner took care of the communication and navigation equipment. It was possible to swap out some of his equipment, so I would help him. I never could get comfortable up there. It scared the living s**t out of me.

Guys like your brother amazed me. For them it was a second home. They could 'sense' everything going on around them (their survival depended on it). It takes a special kind of person to do that job.

 

[sailnavy]

Are the pilots all pretentious a/holes like Top Gun would have us believe?!
-Some are, most aren't.


Is it really cramped?
-Yes, very much so.

Do you get sick of it?
-Yes. Imagine being locked in your office building with all your co-workers for 6-8 months.

Out of 5,000 people on-board, how many do you actually know and know well?
- I knew my squadron really well (150ish people) probably another 150-200 from the other squadrons and the boat folks. It's ALOT of people, how many people do you know in your office building, yeah you see them, but do you know them?

What about leisure time, how rowdy do you all get when on shore leave?!
-Depends where you are and what you're doing.

A friend of mine is a flight attendant and has the craziest schedule of flying round the world. LA one week, London the next, Tokyo the next... It's worlds apart from being stuck behind a desk all day.
-It's not that glamorous, and it gets old. The boat doesn't go fast enough to do London and Tokyo in two days, and the airplanes need fuel to fly that far.

Sorry for the delay with the answers.

 

[sailnavy]

Ski Jumps

The ski jumps are to augment the harrier take-offs. They consume significantly more fuel in a vertical take-off scenario, and have some safety issues. Most of the time forward motion is used to get airflow over the control surfaces. During the transition from the deck to over water, there is a loss of lift due to the disappearance of ground effect and the planes settle a bit, the ski jump takes the forward motion and converts it to vertical, helping with the transition off the deck. Also, it looks pretty cool doesn't it?

The new Electro-Mag Cats are currently in testing. From what I've heard they've at least stopped welding the shuttle to the rails. Progress.

 

[sailnavy]

Flight Deck guys

The guys that work the flight deck always amazed me. I once had one of my airframers get blown back into a Jet Blast Deflector, she wasn't paying attention and an aircraft came up on the power. She was great, shook it right off. "Glad that JBD was there, or I'd really have gone for a ride!" Amazing.

It's a dangerous place, and they are all true professionals. I once had an F-18 turn on me and put their exhaust over my head (I saw it and ducked, thankfully), that'll wake you up.

 

[AlBDamned]

Sorry for the delay with the answers.

Are you kidding, I've waited years to ask these questions so thanks for answering at all.

I appreciate it must be a pretty tough assignment, though. Dangerous too.

 

[ErikCLDR]

That looks like an amazing site to see. I have never seen an aircraft carrier in person. With the buildings in the foreground it really gives a sense of its vast size. I think "Kitty Hawk" is a really clever name. It would be sad to see that name be lost.

I was watching some show on I think the Discovery Channel about a future Navy Ship. It is stealth unless really close to the radar antenna. It can't be detected over the curve of the earths surface but can shoot missiles to that place. It has the aircraft that don't need a runway, boat launches I think, and an amphibious hovercraft. It will also have rockets that can take out incoming missiles supposedly.

One of my teacher says that UPS has the 6th largest airforce in the world? Is this true.

 

[sailnavy]

Airforces

I don't know about UPS, but cargo is increasing in market share. I think a private company on the west coast owns most commercial aircraft and leases them to the operators, so they might win.

The army oddly has quite a number of aircraft, mostly helos. They say they have more aircraft than the airforce, and more boats than the navy.