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CVN-78 Gerald W Ford

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  • AKA Growing pains. What works on paper takes time to make work in the field and under stress. They would not have spent that much money on her if they didnt think they could make her work to expectations.
    Fortitude.....The strength to persist...The courage to endure.

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    • Originally posted by Dreadnought View Post
      AKA Growing pains. What works on paper takes time to make work in the field and under stress. They would not have spent that much money on her if they didnt think they could make her work to expectations.
      Can you tell me why they got rid of an elevator? Wouldn't this make the sortie generation rates worse?

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      • No. The loss of the elevator will not hurt sortie rates.

        Aircraft on US carriers are pretty much only struck below for maintenance. All the arming and fueling occurs on the flight deck. The elevator that was eliminated was rarely used as an elevator and was mostly used as a deck parking area. The new layout of the "Pit Stops" that were designed with input from NASCAR is what's really going to improve the sortie rate.

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        • Originally posted by ChrisV71 View Post
          No. The loss of the elevator will not hurt sortie rates.

          Aircraft on US carriers are pretty much only struck below for maintenance. All the arming and fueling occurs on the flight deck. The elevator that was eliminated was rarely used as an elevator and was mostly used as a deck parking area. The new layout of the "Pit Stops" that were designed with input from NASCAR is what's really going to improve the sortie rate.
          Interesting, I didn't know that, thanks.

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          • This seawater to fuel technology may find a home aboard GRF?http://www.navy.mil/viewVideo.asp?id=19336

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            • If they can get that fuel up to JP-5 standard that would greatly help Unrep in a wartime environment (well if they had a machine that could make vast quanties FAST). I would think they could use that to make fuel for the rest of the fleet? Very cool though.
              RIP Charles "Bob" Spence. 1936-2014.

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              • It would indeed be a very cool thing to do. You know, we already do this with O2N2 generation. I wonder how many people ever stop and think, "Where does the O2 the pilots breathe at high altitudes come from?" Well, my guys in A-gang made it out of thin air . . . literally. It's a fascinating process that involves refrigeration and high pressure air compressor, and we make several hundred gallons of both every day. It's also a process that can bring a carrier strike group to its knees if those two generating plants (one forward and one aft) both crash. No O2, no fly. The N2 is used in aircraft tires and hydraulic systems. We also used to pour a few pints for the doctors down in sickbay. They used it to burn off warts. A good time was had by all.

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                • If the new carriers are able to successfully generate their own aviation fuel (perhaps even fuel for their escorts?) what would become the limiting factors in their deployments?

                  Food?

                  Spare parts?

                  Crew endurance?

                  How capable is the machine shop aboard a carrier in fabricating parts as things inevitably break down?

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                  • Originally posted by SteveDaPirate View Post
                    How capable is the machine shop aboard a carrier in fabricating parts as things inevitably break down?
                    According to Murphy... that capability would be disproportional with the distance from the nearest friendly land.
                    No such thing as a good tax - Churchill

                    To make mistakes is human. To blame someone else for your mistake, is strategic.

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                    • Originally posted by SteveDaPirate View Post
                      If the new carriers are able to successfully generate their own aviation fuel (perhaps even fuel for their escorts?) what would become the limiting factors in their deployments?

                      Food?

                      Spare parts?

                      Crew endurance?

                      How capable is the machine shop aboard a carrier in fabricating parts as things inevitably break down?
                      As Engineering Auxiliaries Officer, I owned the machine shop too. It was a pretty capable facility, with more lathes than the law allows! But we weren't the only repair facility on board. A lot of folks never think of the Air Intermediate Maintenance Department (AIMD). They could repair gas turbines on board, and one of the really cool things they could do was manufacture extremely high pressure (e.g. 20K PSIG) flex hoses intended for use on aircraft, but also found throughout modern warships. Also, the Electrical Department had the capability to do a complete burn out and rewind of just about every electric motor found in the fleet. Some of those motors for centrifugal HVAC chill water units are HUGE, and we could rewind them. Repair Division had Level One welders who could braise ice cream to a screen door. I mean these guys are GOOD!! So you see, a CVN has the capability to, and generally does, act as the maintenance availability for the strike group, and we did it without missing a beat. It's just part of the job.

                      Seriously, when I was that 22-25 year old man in charge of all the stuff that fell into my bailiwick, I just took it all for granted. I look back on it now and frankly, I'm amazed at what we could, and did, do.

                      I think crew endurance becomes the limiting factor. I made two deployments in Constellation, both pushing ten months in duration. On the first one, we did 144 straight days underway. Do the math; that's about five months. Five months without seeing so much as a sliver of land. You really do develop the 1000 yard stare after a while. You start acting a bit robotic. Then again, guys did something like two years underway in WWII without seeing any meaningful liberty on dry land; and they won a world war. Still, speaking for myself, anything over six months in duration is a gold plated beyotch.
                      Last edited by desertswo; 10 Apr 14,, 21:54.

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                      • Originally posted by SteveDaPirate View Post
                        If the new carriers are able to successfully generate their own aviation fuel (perhaps even fuel for their escorts?) what would become the limiting factors in their deployments?

                        Food?

                        Spare parts?

                        Crew endurance?

                        How capable is the machine shop aboard a carrier in fabricating parts as things inevitably break down?
                        The machine shop in the WWII Hornet is pretty capable especially in the hands of great machinists. I can only imagine how much better and larger the one could be on a CVN. The Iowa has a machine shop that is also impressive in it's own right. Of course a ship like the Holland could almost make a new submarine right on board.

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                        • Originally posted by SteveDaPirate View Post
                          If the new carriers are able to successfully generate their own aviation fuel (perhaps even fuel for their escorts?) what would become the limiting factors in their deployments?

                          Food?

                          Spare parts?

                          Crew endurance?

                          How capable is the machine shop aboard a carrier in fabricating parts as things inevitably break down?
                          .

                          Well, thinking a little out of the box, looking for an Achilles heel, I'd say researchers/scientists.

                          Ie, you are the other guy. You want to hit the task force with something to take them down a notch or two. Find something that in that in their world of maintaining/fixing that they don't know how to CURE.

                          Whether it is something like virus that shreds their computers (with our modular replacement theories, there's one thing, do we fix computers on board or bring in replacements) or perhaps a metal virus that hits them in their stocks, find something that they keep fixing and fixing but don't have a way to figure out what the actual problem is.

                          Now, of course, we have the scientists and researchers on land in shipyards, so eventually, they will find an answer.

                          BUT, if we lose that infrastructure, perhaps because the bean counter says, "We don't need them anymore, we can do it all at sea!", then.............................................. ....

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                          • Originally posted by tbm3fan View Post
                            The machine shop in the WWII Hornet is pretty capable especially in the hands of great machinists. I can only imagine how much better and larger the one could be on a CVN. The Iowa has a machine shop that is also impressive in it's own right. Of course a ship like the Holland could almost make a new submarine right on board.
                            One word: eletronics. Can't build/rebuild a circuit board. That alone is (imho) the biggest diference, maintenance-wise, from WWII...

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                            • Originally posted by jlvfr View Post
                              One word: eletronics. Can't build/rebuild a circuit board. That alone is (imho) the biggest diference, maintenance-wise, from WWII...
                              No but you can certainly store circuit boards and nowadays circuit boards are minimized to such a degree that you can store enough to sustain a 9 month deployment without needing to go to a base to get the circuit boards fixed. Moreover, carriers make regular stops and circuit boards can be ferried by plane within hours to any base and to any helicopters or C-2 planes that can ferry to the carrier.

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                              • Originally posted by tbm3fan View Post
                                Of course a ship like the Holland could almost make a new submarine right on board.
                                Please provide a complete name of the Holland ship you were referring to so I can look it up and examine its capabilities and learn more about it online. Thanks in advance.

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