Some of the pics in the link provided by Sid in the thread below will allow the uninitiated some sense of what it means when airedales talk about “big deck” carriers. Nearest to the camera is Independence, that great rough beast, then Saratoga and finally Intrepid, a World War II veteran, and most decidedly a “small deck.”
I flew off Indy, by the way. Cuppla deployments. The pic below was taken about a week or so after I was born.
Which, take that for what it’s worth.
Oh, and today’s “supercarriers?” Twenty percent bigger.
Four and 1/2 acres of sovereign US territory, and 100,000 tons of diplomacy, going anywhere it’s wet.
Boo-yah.
Glad I was able to contribute something with a modicum of substance Captain.
BTW, that pic I sent you via email a little while back has a good view (if a bit grainy) of one of the sqaudrons (easy to figure out which one too I’m sure) pictured above departing for the Indy for this Med deployment…Her first operational one.
On the eve of Sara’s next deployment after the one pictured above, I could be found at the charlie pier in Mayport “supervising” the crane load out of all 12 aircraft for that particular squadron. Although a “Hoot”, it was a bit of a dicey operation considering the dimensions involved, let me tell yah. I am glad to report though, other than some worn tooth enamel, all went well.
sid
Small deck? Try this one.
I have a photo (packed away unfortunately, but I’ll try to find it) of the Melbourne sailing alongside the Enterprise. 90000 tons and 1150 feet versus 20000 tons and 700 feet. The caption is ‘Big E – Little M.’
I guess the motto for naval aviation should be ‘go hard or go home.’
On Intrepid I can see all those S-2′s, A-4′s, E-1Bs and Helos….unique CVS. That is what it is- a CVS….at least in this pic.
Well familiar with the other two. Lot’s o’drumsticks with a 550 nm range, eh?
Speaking of the present here is a neat statement I clipped out of a EB article a day ago:
“now the word from Newport is that the War College briefs are going to advocate an 8-carrier force with more focus on LCS.”
Geez-Louise!
B2
Small deck? That’s not a small deck. You want a small deck, now, this is a small deck…
(I’m just waiting for a helo driver to show up and post a shot of a 1052′s flight deck!)-
What about a GEARING Class DASH Deck? BWAHAHAHAHAHA
You may want to take a closer look at this cleaner version of the pic B2.
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h97000/h97716.jpg
This was the Intrepid’s last deployment as a CVA. Forward are A-4s, then Spads, followed by F-8s, and then more Spads aft. She was designated as a CVS after her subsequent yard period.
This pic is pretty interesting in that it shows the maximum swing of the pendulum that carrier air took in the nuke delivery role. The number of megatons in these three ships’ magazines must have been spectacular. I count no fewer than 74 nuke attack aircraft on those three decks.
Well, it WAS late 1960. Gary Powers was incarcerated in The Soviet Union. The folks in the ready rooms of the those ships were frustrated as hell they were not allowed to sway the outcome of the Bay of Pigs fiasco just a few months before. Tensions were tight at Checkpoint Charlie. Harvey and Wheeler were finshing up their novel “Failsafe”. The next year-1961- would bring the Berlin Wall, the Cuban Crisis, and the first US aircraft was shot down in Vietnam not quite four months after this photo was taken.
That picture captures a little piece of some Truly Troubled Times.
Note the Indy has only two F3Hs on deck and no F-8s. They were in Rota, offloaded to make room for six more A-3s for a total of 18 aboard. With the exception of the couple of F3Hs, Willy Fudds, and the HUP, she is an all Douglas deck. A-3s, A-4s, and A-1s. Apparently, her main mission if the ballon went up was to blow a very big hole into the southern tier of the Soviet Union.
As it turned out, these deck combinations were poorly suited for the very different kind of war these guys had to REALLY fight just three years later a half a world away.
I can’t help but ponder that it appears that Naval Air is yet again at a maximum pendulum swing-which could ultimately prove as problematic-with the advent of the all Strike Fighter deck.
I see your carriers and raise you a Dauntless, “Kate” and “Zero”. Not trying to hijack the post, but Lex, your “Contact” section does not seem to be working. Besides, sharing is fun.
http://home.comcast.net/~bradinatl/dixieaircraft.html
A serious question Captain Lex…
I seem to remember a post you made sometime back that there was consternation shortly after the Indy was forward deployed to replace the Midway and some whining was heard that went something like, “Well, the Midway could do it…” [or something like that]
I have heard it said that the Coral Sea and Midway were perhaps the two best operating decks of the day. (I do know the FDR always suffered because of her catapults and forward centerline elevator).
I was wondering if you could elaborate a bit about why some seemed to have heartburn with the way the Indy did business (now I personally had some issues with her crappy CIC on the ’82 cruise but that was not in any way deck related).
Was it an east coast/west coast thing or something else?
Lex,
Here are a couple more for you to look at and consider as comparision of big deck and small deck,
[url=http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/020632.jpg] NAS North Island with the Big E, Sara, USS San Jacinto, and the USS Hornet(II)[/url]
[url=http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/020642.jpg]Brooklyn Naval Yard, 1958, background is the USS Independence still under construction and the USS Enterprise CV-6 being scrapped. [/url]
Both of these shots came from http://www.navsource.org. An interesting clearing house of US Naval Ships from Carriers down to the lowly harbor tugs.
And another Captain…I take it you were aboard here?
http://www.midwaysailor.com/midwayhawaii91/midway-053b.jpg
Here is good study of the Midway with her “big” (and wayyyy expensive) angle and other deck improvements relative to the Indy:
http://www.midwaysailor.com/midwayhawaii91/midway-461b.jpg
Just so happened to be aboard the Coral Sea (which had just been launched from the dry dock) when the Midway was warped into Hunters Point stern first on a raw blustery February day in ’66 for what was supposed to be a two year- and which stumbled into four for twice the money- yard period that gave her that deck.
Some teeth gnashing going on for that evolution as well (but not mine) as there was a fairly tight port to port fit between the two.
OK, last of the waxing nostalgic from me. In case anyone is wondering why the photo above was taken in Nov 1960 but the folks on deck made it a point to spell out 1961. The reason is some enterprising PAO wanted to make sure the photo got into this edition of Naval Aviation News:
http://www.history.navy.mil/nan/backissues/1960s/1961/jan61.pdf
Actually Sid, I’d left Indy before the Midway swap out.
I did make the 75th anniversary party in P-Cola though. Got to meet Brooke Shields, who was still quite the thing at the time.
And as for the 1960/61 thing, I’m glad to hear it wasn’t that they ran out of sailors
Where do you get all these wonderful pictures? I feel like I’m tapped into the Historian of the Whole Navy…
#6 Sid;
Wasn’t “Failsafe” written by (Eugene) Burdick and (Harvey) Wheeler?
Read it when I was a kid, about a year after it was published. Got my attention, it did.
Then a few weeks later, “Triumph” by Philip Wylie. And it was about the *winners*. (It also had a carrier able to loft a recon satellite when it needed post-strike recon.) Just the thing to make a 13-year-old something of a light sleeper for a while.
“Wasn?
“Wasn’t “Failsafe” written by (Eugene) Burdick and (Harvey) Wheeler?”
Sorry, sloppy googling on my part.
Other errors in need of correction:
-The C-47 lost on 23 Mar 1961 (first entry in the book Vietnam Air Losses) was actually in Vientiane Laos. First loss in Vietnam was a C-123 on 2 Feb 1962.
-The Bay of Pigs was in April 1961, not 1960. The folks in the air groups aboard the Intrepid and Independence recently returned from deployment were standing at the ready…I do remember that right, and that sense of frustration was there, let me tellyah.
Khruschev (seems to me what he saw in Stalingrad would have turned him into an avowed pacifist-Go Figure) was banging his shoe on the rostrum and saying he was going to bury us in 1960 though.
In my old book browsings I found where Norman Polmar mentions this particular deployment to the Med in his book Aircraft Carriers. He says all the carriers flew off a squadron of fighters for more attack aircraft that late summer and fall in both the Med and North Pac due to the tensions.
I do know the A-3 squadron on the Indy had 18 aircraft, 10 of which are present in the picture…I am sure the deck officer just loved THAT!!
“I did make the 75th anniversary party in P-Cola though. Got to meet Brooke Shields, who was still quite the thing at the time.”
Who knows Captain, we may have crossed wakes…
And Lord knows I would still include Brooke in the Hot Babe category!
And oh yeah. While the Intrepid was redesignated as a CVS, she was used in Vietnam as a “limited attack carrier”.
Sid,
Roger that. Mea culpa. I took the bigger jets to be Intruders and went on…single track mind I reckon.
With the detail I can see the old the old nuclear attack-centric CVAs. Attack whales and Vigi’s as discussed. Cool. Just the thing for Quemoy-Matsu and the Cuban missile crisis, eh?
Sara & Indy have a nominal 40 F/A aircraft on the roof with more below. Were they ~75 aircraft airwings then Sid? No JDAM, but then again, a 20 kiloton silver bullet doesn’t require accuracy to single digit meters!
B2
B2
Served in Independence, Ranger, Kitty Hawk, Nimitz and George Washington. Nice shot. Anchors Aweigh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Well, I couldn’t leave it alone. This shot is perhaps the best example of Small deck vs. Big deck there may be and dovetails into what Theodore mentioned above:
http://www.navy.mil/management/photodb/photos/040317-N-0000N-058.jpg
You have to look close, but see the little blunt nosed craft off the starboard quarter of the JFK moored bow out at the pier?
That is the IX-514, which plys Pensacola Bay deck qual’ing various helos from TH-57s from Whiting to Army MH-6s. The deck replicates that of a 1052(IIRC):
http://www.angelfire.com/fl/crazydave/images/hlt.jpg
Can’t think of a bigger contrast in “decks” than the JFK and her!
(and here is an acknowledgement of the gent’s site from which I purloined the above pic)
http://www.angelfire.com/fl/crazydave/page7A.html
Anyways, this brings up a more fundamental observation.
Now, more than ever, helos are taking on an ever larger part of the warfighting as fixed wing assets diminish in number. However, the Rotor Heads have never been able to fully shake the vague sense that they were all as peculiar as the Mickey Rooney character in “The Bridges At To-Ko-Ri”
Reading this interview here:
http://www.aviationtoday.com/reports/natham.htm
I see that is finally changing and they are now being accorded full Warrior status. While one may argue the demise of carrier borne fixed wing ASW is not the right way to go, finally giving the helo drivers their just due is a Good Thing.
And a couple of historical notes. P-cola bay is one of the Finest in the World and the navy has used it for flight ops from the very beginning:
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h02000/h02243.jpghttp://www.aviationtoday.com/reports/natham.htm
And Michner patterned his helo driver character after this guy:
http://www.usgennet.org/usa/topic/preservation/journals/pegasus/preface.html
Fixed link to pic of early ops on Pensacola Bay:
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h02000/h02243.jpg