The most important part of the carrier is the flight deck. With an area as big as 4.5 acres stretching over 1,000 ft., today's flight deck has come a long way since its inauspicious beginnings in 1910 as a wooden platform mounted on a light cruiser. And although today's carrier is very large, it is very small when compared to an on-shore airbase. The limited space means that carriers must rely upon specialized technology to make the flight deck its most efficient; launching two planes and landing one simultaneously every 37 seconds in daylight. A busy flight deck can seem chaotic, but it is a tightly organized operation with highly trained crew wearing color- coded uniforms.
To learn more, rollover this Kitty Hawk Class flight deck at right.
Tested in 1934, the USS Yorktown and USS Enterprise began launching planes with flush deck hydraulic catapults in 1939. Today's steam-powered catapults have 300 ft. to rocket an aircraft into the sky. Planes go from 0 to 165 mph in a mere 2 seconds. Nimitz class carriers have three foredeck catapults, to be used two at a time.
Flight deck landing systems have come a long way since the early 20th century when ropes with sandbag weights crossed the decks of early testing platforms. Today, all carrier-based aircraft use eight-foot long tail-hooks to catch one of four cables strung across the landing strip. A plane moving at 150 mph will halt exactly 320 feet from the cable intercept.
During the early days of carriers, landing pilots relied upon a Landing Signals Officer (LSO) equipped with flags or paddles to indicate an incoming aircraft's position in relation to the landing deck. Now, pilots are told to "call the ball" by traffic controllers as they near touchdown. The term refers to a multi-lens (fresnel) light located on the port (left) side, mid-ships. The colored lights appear differently according to a pilot's orientation to the landing deck and indicate the plane's altitude, horizontal alignment and proximity to the flight deck.
Primary Flight Command is located in this tower, where the flight deck commanders and air controlers work together to ensure that all crews and craft are coordinated. Along with the helm, or command bridge, radar, ship navigation, communications and helm operations all function from this high tech tower.
Several different crews work the flight deck. They wear a rainbow of different solid color jumpsuits to help pilots, crew and commanders distinguish between them. Purple teams fuel planes, blue-teams handle the planes, deck communications and plane movements to and from hanger bays below deck. Green teams work landing cables, perform on-deck aircraft maintenance and deal with cargo. Yellow teams are officers for green and blue teams. Red crew work armaments, crash, salvage and explosives disposal. Brown are pilots and air crew, while white teams are composed of safety, medical, inspectors, officers, quality control and liquid oxygen handlers.
Photo Credits: U.S. Navy
