Here are several more things to ponder. The whole idea of a carrier is to be able to launch the US Navy's aircraft in a zero wind situation. So they figure how much catapult length they need based on the total war load of the heaviest plane. Then how big does the flight deck need to be to support 4 "cats" and with an angle be able to land them and shoot them from the bow. Then a "hanger bay" is usually sized so some % can be stored and worked on and lastly room for the crew. That is a bit harder now with a mix of male and female. An example of small goofs....the S1 berthing on the USS Constellation does not have a shower/head so to get to theirs you cross the passageway right by the forward ship's store with shower shoes and a towel!

On nuclear carriers steam pressure can be raised/lowered to increase/decrease the power of the cat shot where on the old boiler carriers they had 1200PSI which was harder to regulate into the cat so it was regulated with very large valves.


A plane is generally washed every morning to control corrosion I.E. 125 gallons each plane. A cat shot takes about 125 to 150 gallons of water that was made into steam and both are non recoverable!


Today's planes are all about the same size, back in 'Nam we had, increasing in size and weight: A4's, F8's, A7's, F4's, A6's as bombers, A3's with electronics stuff and finally the monster sized RA-5 vigilante. To get enough steam to fire one of the RA-5 planes we would run reactor temps to 515 (if I remember right?) which gave us maximum steam pressure. When that plane went off the cat the whole Enterprise would shake like hell. One A6 could carry up to a total of 18,000 lbs. of bombs which was much more than a WW2 B-17 in full load. They had about the same pressure as a RA5.

I'm completely out of my league in this thread - just a wannabe here - and I'm not sure how this relates to the big boats, but i was told by the top dude over all engineering spaces (for the life of me I can't remember his full title - chief XX) that on a DDG at full power, the propeller shafts twist up to 8 fricking feet. And that they have a way of measuring that. And I believed him too. True?

Keep goin' guys, this is some good schitz right here...

My wife is perpetually irritated by my ability to fall asleep no matter what else is going on. My berth on the E was on the O2 forward, right under the port Cat. I learned really quick to sleep when I needed to, regardless. During flight ops, the Cat shots became rythemic in a way. Sssssssshhhhhh,,,,,,,,,,Booooommm as it would hit the bumpers. Yeah, the bow shook each and every time we launched. I’ve seen the pictures of test shots early on with old cars, never witnessed something like that but, while I was on they would test the Cats with weights.

I wish I had pix of my grandfather working at the Charleston Naval Base. He worked there from the 40-60's. My dad worked there during the summers of high school and Clemson. He was a welder who got the crummy jobs because he was skinny and fit where nobody else could.

My best friend in high school joined up a couple of years ahead of me. Became a Nuke MM and was on the E when I reported aboard in Aug of 85. We overlapped our tours by almost a year but saw little of each other. Nukes rarely made it up to the Hanger Bay let alone to fresh air, LOL. I was offered a billet at Nuke school but turned it down. Wanted to remain a conventional ET after hearing what the Nuke ETs duties were like. Mainly plant operators.

I doubt that any propeller shaft twists that much, sounds like a "sea story". Shafts do have what we used to call torque indicators which is what limits a ship's speed once they start getting old. I think the Enterprises were measured in degrees of twist and we had a table that translated to FT-LBS or millions of FT-LBS.

Shafts on the Enterprise were filled with a special sand compressed to reduce vibration and the outside wrapped with layers of fiberglass cloth and epoxy.