Video: US Aircraft Carrier High Speed Turns. Wow

[Spear Dane]

They only do this during sea trials.

Shoot something at it and see how fast it starts dodging.

 

[Alamo]

My dad remembered blue sea over the bow and spray that went over the ship from bow to stern on his WWII DE. ...

My dad (then Army Air Forces) returned from the Pacific Theater of Operations after the end of WWII on the battleship Wisconsin. I remember he commented that when they were in heavy seas, the smaller ships around them would bob up and down on top of the waves, but the Wisconsin would plow straight through them. I think he was glad he was on the battleship, altho I have to think space was cramped.


ETA: Almost completely unrelated factoid: My sister has a newspaper that was published on the Wisconsin as Dad rode it back to the states. It lists all the troops on board being returned. A great many of them were going back to Indiana. [/factoid]

 

[churchmouse]

They only do this during sea trials.

There was a deal on one of the cable channels about sea trials on one of these. Just to awesome.

 

[singlestacksig]

Has anyone ever water skied behind a carrier?

not personally but it has been done..
It takes a HUGE amount of rope .. and possibly risking your job / life ...
Here is a video of someone behind a destroyer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e142-8fV9OU

 

[IndyDave1776]

Yeah, but, my God man! The amount of energy needed to do that!

The power that ship has is amazing!

The last of the oil-fired carriers were officially rated at 280,000 horsepower (4 shafts at 70,000 each) and the nukes would need a bit more than that to do what they are officially acknowledged to be capable of doing and would need at least double that to do some of the things that people directly connected with them claim they are capable of doing.

 

[IndyDave1776]

It's also surprising how fast nuclear powered carriers are. When I live in California and the USS Enterprise was stationed there, some of the guys from that boat told me that none of the support ships in their group could keep the pace if they went to full speed. They only used two of the eight reactors at a time and claimed it could make 55 mph. I think 40 mph is more realistic (I could be wrong), but that's still damn fast for something that big on top of the water.

Admiral Rickover, who was in charge of nuclear propulsion at the time, was well known for being eccentric and insisted that the Enterprise have a reactor for every boiler in a conventional carrier, which was, to say the least, excessive. As a result, the Enterprise was to the best of my knowledge the fastest ship ever built even without using more than 4 reactors at any given time. I would speculate that truly opening it up would have either destroyed the turbines or broken up the hull, whichever came first.

Going from memory, I recall that examples of cruisers with top speeds about 32 knots would make 28 or 29 knots at half power, and cruisers have much finer hull lines, hence less resistance, than carriers. As speed increases incrementally, the power required to attain that speed increases at a far greater multiplicative rate such that for a straight line slope on the graph of increased speed, you will have a corresponding ski-jump type curve representing the associated increase in power.

In any event, we are talking about amounts of power that would defy most people's understanding, much in the same way that we can discuss trillions of dollars but still can't really wrap our heads around how much money that truly is.

 

[Nazgul]

The last of the oil-fired carriers were officially rated at 280,000 horsepower (4 shafts at 70,000 each) and the nukes would need a bit more than that to do what they are officially acknowledged to be capable of doing and would need at least double that to do some of the things that people directly connected with them claim they are capable of doing.

The JFK was the last conventionally powered carrier.

Don

 

[actaeon277]

warning, some language


[video=youtube;BYkhz0egPnk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYkhz0egPnk[/video]

 

[actaeon277]

17 minutes in, there's a good look down a ladder.

 

[spencer rifle]

No one mentions cavitation. That steals energy from the props, and can do a lot of damage at high speed.

 

[Spear Dane]

17 minutes in, there's a good look down a ladder.

Damn. I know you were in subs but do you have any clue where that ladder goes and how far down it was?

 

[Nazgul]

17 minutes in, there's a good look down a ladder.

On the Kennedy, this looks like the entrance to our small arms magazine. Hauled ammo out of there more than once.

Goes down to other "bigger" magazines as well.

Don

 

[actaeon277]

Damn. I know you were in subs but do you have any clue where that ladder goes and how far down it was?

I have no idea.
My first day on the sub, I got lost trying to leave.
I would have had ZERO chance on a carrier.

 

[rhino]

not personally but it has been done..
It takes a HUGE amount of rope .. and possibly risking your job / life ...
Here is a video of someone behind a destroyer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e142-8fV9OU

AWESOME!

 

[russc2542]

Yep, I've also heard from voices with experience that if the battle group took off the carrier was last to get moving but caught up with and passed the others shortly.

much like bulluts, long thin aspect ratio has a better BC. long thin hulls have less resistance in water as well. While the turns are impressive, keep on mind the scale: they won't be evading anything mobile. Those turns are miles long and wide and take several minutes. The ship's 1/5 mile long!

yea, salinity affects density, thus draft, thus resistance, thus top speed. Barnacles and the like on the hull would increase resistance. Makes sense that a military ship would post the top speed in conditions.

 

[rhino]

If only rich people could and would purchase decommissioned nulcear carriers and then drag race them against each other as well as other big ships.

 

[actaeon277]

If only rich people could and would purchase decommissioned nulcear carriers and then drag race them against each other as well as other big ships.

I don't know, they'd have to be REALLY, REALLY rich.
Those things are $$$ to maintain.

 

[Nazgul]

The speed was listed at Shaft RPM for the props.

The first time they did high speed run when I was on board, they announced " Stand by for emergency reverse!!".

Didn't feel a thing, took so much to decelerate and get going astern that there was not a real sensation of change.

Full speed was impressive from the fantail. The roller following the ship was almost as high as the deck behind the jet engine shop. Say 40-50 feet??

Don

 

[rhino]

I don't know, they'd have to be REALLY, REALLY rich.
Those things are $$$ to maintain.

Yeah, my multi-hundredaire status isn't going to cut it.

 

[actaeon277]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorent...f-the-federal-budget-a-lot-less/#4aeda0297d74

cost of a carrier