Photo Du Jour
Probably more. The Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth would do close to 40 knots and they weren’t nuclear powered. The United States could go close to 50 knots. I would imagine the Ronald Reagan is capable of 50+ when it’s going flat out.
One beautiful ship for a beautiful person. God Bless you Ron
Ditto, Bat Crusher.
I wouldn’t venture to guess her speed judging by this one picture, but she is certainly shoving that water aside. Fifty knots wouldn’t surprise me.
Just got this from an old retired USAF buddy of mine:
Allan,
Way back in the mid 80’s in Charleston SC I had a friend that was a
submariner sonar analyst (E-7). This guy was so good that he would be
called to the Whitehouse to do analysis on acoustical tracks recorded by our
subs.
Anyway we got to talking about the Enterprise which was the first (I think)
of the Nimitz class carriers and he told me that the Navy managed to do a
high speed run in the South China Sea. He was assigned to Hawaii at the
time and he was on board during the test to listen around the area to make
sure it was clear.
He told me that when they hit 90% on the reactor the ship was moving at 65
knots. The reason they stopped was due to a slight rudder vibration and the
Navy got worried about losing control and doing a high-speed roll. We
laughed and guessed that if it done a high-side roll it would have rolled
for a about a 1/4 mile.
The main reason he said the Navy didn’t publish the information is that at
that time they didn’t want the world to know that if the ship had enough
time to get up to speed it would be able to out run a torpedo attack.
So the chances are they did not let all of the horses loose on the Ronnie.Don
65 knots? Blow me down! At that speed, if the ship is heading into the wind, they won’t need a damned catapult. Just undo the tie-downs on the jets and watch ‘em lift up and zoom off.
65 knots? Yikes!
When we were stationed at NAS Norfolk, I got to drive past CVN 76 on a regular basis. That pic simply does not do her justice. She’ll always hold a special place in my heart, Reagan was the first President I can remember (I was born 24 Nov 1976) so to see such a magnificent ship (the ‘boat’ term goes to the subs, sorry *s*) bear his name means a lot.
OCM - Most of the ones named after people, I can at least agree with…
...but the USS Jimmy Carter (SSN 23)...that poor boat’s crew got saddled with a HORRID name.
No Kidding Severa. I wouldn’t name a target ship after that piece of shit. The target ship at least probably served honorably.
However - with the Reagan - it only lends meaning to that old saw: Don’t bother running, you’ll only die tired.
Damn! That’s almost freeway speed (well, faster than freeway speed if you’re stuck in Oregon). I remember some years ago working with a retired navy man. He told me once that his ship was heading to Vietnam at near flank speed (35 knots) and they got passed by the Big E. He figured it was going 15 knots or so faster than his ship. Pretty impressive.
So...just curious if the men serving on the Jimmy Carter have a nickname for their boat and what it is.
John C - Oh I’m almost sure they do. My husband served on the USS Hyman G Rickover and the submariners had nicknames for all the boats. Among the favorites: USS Seawolf’s nicknames were Pierwolf or Building 21, USS Minneapolis-St Paul’s was the USS Menopause, USS Oklahoma was the USS Brokelahoma. Those are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head.
I’ve talked to Merchant Mariners who swear that they’ve seen DDGs (escort vessels for ships like the Reagan) throwing roosters tails off the back. DDGs are also given as 30 Knots plus. Take your best guess - short version - you can easily ski behind any of them.
Ah the wonders of your tax dollars at work.
I think you guys are telling sea stories. I’d say you ought to check on some specs ...
http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-028.htm
http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/nimitz/
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/cvn-68.htm
http://www.iwar.org.uk/military/resources/aircraft-carriers/cvn-76-uss-ronald-reagan.htmCVN Reagan has the same amount of power as the other ships in the Nimitz class. Ships that are longer and thinner usually go faster, yet the Reagan is slightly shorter and fatter than the other ships in this class. Even with her new design “bulbous nose piece” bow, at best this will only allow her to move as fast, or perhaps just a hair faster, than the other ships in this class. My guess is 33 knots max.
As to the first part of the bow wave, it’s nearly meaningless. So are the secondary bow waves. That subsurface bulbous nose piece - the same kind that’s on the new Queen Mary II - vastly reduces these kind of waves. Think about it, and you’ll realize that a big bow wave merely indicates a bad hull design. Like a hotrod smoking the tires, it’s wasted energy. A perfect hull design would create no wave at all; all the propulsive energy would go into moving the ship forward and not into displacing the water to the side. For all I know the Navy is pumping water out there to create a super cavitation effect - they use super cavitation for missles and torpedoes already - which could drastically reduce the effort needed to push the ship forward, and the big spray the Skip is seeing could be a side effect of that. But even still it would only be worth an extra 3 or 4 knots.
Oh, and for Dr. Jeff - rooster tails at the stern are another indication of wasted energy. The Missouri class battleships of WWII made them as well. They only indicate that the end thrust from propellers is reaching the surface. Thus part of the propulsive energy is being wasted.
Now, while I will also gladly wear the foil hat of “the Navy won’t release the real numbers for reasons of xxxx” I really really doubt that they’d cut the figures by half, or even a third.
Lastly, torpedoes exist that run in excess of 50 knots. Tough to outrun on of those.
But hey, don’t let me stop you from having your fun. Let the next poster say the Reagan can go 100 knots. Through 4 feet of snow. To school. Uphill in both directions! Because a cousin of a friend of a friend was in a Navy rowboat and saw the ship go by. On a foggy night. In a classified location. But then he was sworn to secrecy by the crew of a CIA black helicopter.
They can spend my tax dollars on ships like this ALL DAY LONG!!!
That’s what my tax dollars should be going for....
Besides, it’s just plain COOL!!!
I believe that Drew is correct in all respects. I can attest to the rooster tail behind destroyer types, having witnessed them myself. It doesn’t happen that often and is usually short lived. It’s due to a quick increase of speed, just like your ski boat.
I can’t attest to the speed of modern carriers, never having been aboard one at sea, but they’re not going to build them to run away from their escort ships. Really. Escorts (destroyers, “cruisers”, etc.) are doing good to get 35 kts with a tailwind.
In any case they’ll go fast enough to muss your hair.
I’m sort of curious about the speed of SS(N)s but I don’t have the need to know and I won’t speculate.
Well, it’s looking pretty high in the water and not digging much of a wake for 100,000 tons. I’ll buy the 42 plus.
I don’t know about 65.. I’d like to see whatever those props are pushing against.
Or any of them. I’m talking about thrust bearings.
Rooster tails? For every thrust back is a thrust forward, and a rooster tail means you have your prop part out of the water, less of it dragging thru the water. Watch those gold cupper hydros.Hey, the Reagan has the first sublight warp drive installed.
But keep that just among us folks, ‘kay?
Anyhow, what is the nickname for the Reagan and other carriers? I hear the TR is called “The Big Stick.” The Lincoln is ported just north of me in Everett; man, it is huge but it sure looks small at a distance when at the dock.
Imagine for a moment that you are a crewman on the flight deck and that the ship is doing 65 knots. Imagine that you’re trying to load weapons onto aircraft with a 65 knot wind blowing both you and the weapons around.
Hi Again! The DDGs (eg USS Cole) are gas turbine powered and have a very large pair of 5 bladed screws, that come very close to meeting at the centerline and extend nearly the full width of the ship. Various inquiries I made brought claims of speeds between 40 and 70 knots, although Navy guys who served on them would only grin and claim that at a little over 32 knots the reduction gears would fail. I don’t believe the reduction gear failure story (grins were too big and too many merchant seamen claimed to have tracked them on radar well over 40 knots). Being an escort for a carrier and its battle group, the DDGs have to be a bit quicker than the big boys. Along with frigates and attack subs, they work picket duty, guarding the outer edges of the battle group. For the nuke carries,I’ve heard the 65 knot story before, from a fairly believeable ex Navy source. There’s a reason for the hanger deck - it does a good job of keeping the sailors out of the breeze while the aircraft are being serviced. No one, but no one is allowed on an exposed area of the big carriers while traveling at flank speed.
Any way that you slice it, the Reagan and her sister ships are awesome pieces of machinery. There’s a poster from Newport News shipyard that calls them “4-1/2 Acres of Soverign U.S. Territory, Where It’s Needed, When It’s Needed”.
The SS United States was good for a steady 35 knots and 38 knots in a burst…
If the water line length for the Reagan is ~900’, then her hull speed would be about 40 knots. Hull speed is the point at which speed increase requires exponential increase in power, so if efficiency and fuel consumption are not an issue, especially for a short time, well....
A tidbit from talking to a pilot at an airshow: F-111’s were rated for ~Mach 2.4, but the limit wasn’t power or airframe constrained, but rather windscreen heating. The pilot said that over a certain Mach they monitored their windscreen temp; they only had so many minutes (very few, IIRC) at 2.5 or thereabouts.
In like fashion, there can be other limitations on the Reagan as well though; rudder vibration and bearing loads as mentioned above, bird strikes, toupees lost..
I knew a guy who worked on CVN’s at Newport News; his job was everything belong the water line. He said the screws were cast one piece, 37’ in diameter!
As an ex-Sm2(skivvy waver), I would guess by the photo that it was moving anywhere between 28-32 knots. The ship I served on, the (USS Dewey DDG-45), was capable of doing the max at 35knots, which makes the USS Reagon one fast ship!
I hate to get misty eyed here, but if you click on the URL http://www.angelfire.com/ca2/gormady/ and scroll down to the pictures of my old ship and a some of the signal crew I served with, taken during the UNITAS cruise around S.America. It was during that cruise we all became shell backs. The guy on the flag bag was ‘Murph the Surf’ from NY city and the guy on the flashing light was Gary Todd from Unadilla Georgia.
Haze grey and always underway!
KGS Sm2P.S How many shell backs have we on this forum...vs pollywogs?
Posted by KGS59
02/12/2006 at 05:36 AM
I supplied the wrong url....sorry = > http://www.angelfire.com/ca2/gormady/TNddg45.htm
KGS
Posted by KGS59
02/12/2006 at 05:40 AM
If you’ve ever walked along one of these at Pierside, you’ll sunburn the roof of your mouth—they’re HUGE! I heard that Oil Supertankers are the largest moving objects ever made. You’ll get the same feeling at Cape Canaveral, I’m told. The NCC-1707 Enterprise is pretty damn big too, but it isn’t real—it only exists in the hearts of millions of people.
Posted by Oink
02/12/2006 at 07:19 AM
The USS Providence CLG-6 was my ship and her top speed was 45 Knots and that was in 1965.
and that was an oil boiler…KGS39 - ground pounder. Closest I ever got to the wet stuff was a recuiting tour at Philadelphia - the Navy actually runs that shop. (The Army got the leftovers… sigh..)
Must have run away from the tin-cans, BC. The best a Sumner or Gearing class can could do was mid 30’s. Same for the later Forest Sherman class. I guess that’s why cruisers often operated alone on some missions like Indianapolis did delivering the A-Bomb.
StinK & T—The Marines get the green weenie: Army leftover gear and Navy chow.
Indianapolis is the home, no surprise, of the USS Indianapolis memorial. I’ve spoken with one of the survivors—not a warm, chatty guy, no surprise.
Posted by Oink
02/12/2006 at 10:38 AM
BobF - If you’re ever up Washington DC way, they’ve got a -71 sitting in the Smithsonian Air wing (Along with the Enola Gay - no mock up). The friggin ‘71 looks like two of the biggest, baddest jet engines you ever saw with a pair of seats strapped in the middle. Hell, I don’t understand where they put the gas. Looks like somebody decided to put a pilot on a missile. That bad ass bitch just made me tear up wishin’ I could get up there an punch the throttle to the stop…
*whines cause she wants to go to DC now* God I LOVED the SR-71.
Couple of years ago at a NAS Oceana air show I saw - get this - a F117 ‘Stealth’ fighter. On static display. Mind you it was cordoned off by a chain and it was guarded by two rifle toting guards but just DAMN....
Got to see the Blue Angels this year here at NAS Brunswick. Helluva show. Even better, they did some of their practice runs right over our housing complex. My 6 yr old son was in heaven
OCM: When the Indy survivor spoke to us, he played that scene.
Posted by Oink
02/12/2006 at 11:30 AM
Here’s a little bit of trivia about the SR-71: While sitting on the ground, awaiting takeoff, fuel leaks out of that sucker like a sieve. Why? Because after takeoff and achieving flight speed (classified), air friction heats up the body so much that the seams in the fuel tanks expand and stop leaking. If they were tight to begin with, the tanks would explode after expansion. At least that’s what my Dad told me and he was an aircraft mechanic in the USAF for thirty years.
Maybe an old CATaMarAN?
I wonder if that explains the hydraulics leaks in the F-4 Phantom. The legend I heard was that if it wasn’t leaking hydraulic fluid they wouldn’t let it fly ‘cause there had to be something wrong with it.
Yes it was, OCM. I saw it and I took it.
I’ll try to return the favor. Maybe I’ll do it without trying, keep an eye out. (as the sailor said to the girl with the glass eye)
For those in the midwest there is also an SR-71A at the Air Force Museum on Wright Patterson AFB near Dayton, Ohio. Not to take anything away from the Smithsonian [which I really enjoyed, where else are you going to see the Wright flyer and Star Treck’s Enterprise?] there is some great stuff at the AF Museum.
There is an SR-71 parked at the aviation museum at Warner-Robins AFB in GA. I want there last summer and check out all the historical birds. Only a few made my heart race standing there looking at them. The Blackbird was one of ‘em.
dident you yanks name a ship after a young seal guy that was murdered by some shit muslim groupe? and the germans let the mussie crap go cause they had some msm guy captured down in iraq?
I think the tanks actually change size/shape somewhat, OCM. They go through a helluva lot more stress and heat than your propane tank does. I understand that, like the space shuttle , you don’t want to touch the skin after it lands. We’re talking HOT!
Had one overfly the Dayton Air show many years ago. After a few passes in different configurations ("dirty", etc.) he turned for home. The announcer told us the plane would be home in California before we got home from the air show.
Yes we did, Bulldog. Here’s the ship’s home page and here’s some pics of it.
Year ... 196? .... USS Wasp CVS-18 .... Essex Class (WW-II) ... ~35 kts. MANY times while I was standing on the flight deck. Advertised speed - 30kts! Add in a 30kt headwind and you have easily 60-65 kts ... in the north Atlantic ... in the dead of winter!
I do believe that CVN-76 should be able to easily do 55kts. The point being to get the f*** out of there and let the support fleet do their thing, which is to kill the threat.
What a magnificent beast!
Sign me up for 6 more!
02/12/2006 at 04:00 PM
