Aircraft carrier flight ops speeds.

PRB

PRB

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I always thought (assumed) that aircraft carriers steamed into the wind at “high speed” during flight ops. I discovered to my surprise that it is not so. See the pic of the F-14A? This is Enterprise (CVN-65), 1982-ish. Check the wake. We can't be moving at more than 10 or 15 knots, and I don't remember ever moving at anything like “high speed” during flight operations. Most days were like this. Something closer to “high speed” can be seen in the other pic. I wish I would have taken a photo while we were really moving quickly...
 
Sure looks like the Sailor in the second photo has a short fishing rod in his hands!:icon_lol::icon_lol:

Best, Paul
 
It sure does! :icon_lol: Never noticed that! Be interesting catching fish at that speed (and height)!
 
During aircraft recovery/launch it´s not about the ship´s speed but about the air speed on the deck, that´s why on both occasions carriers steams against the wind, if there is 30knts air speed on the deck(AFAIK) then your ready.

Prowler
 
That's correct, if they can find the wind for the launch/recovery cycle, if not the ship has to produce the wind. My first cruise on Big "E" we had to get from one place in the world to another, and get there quick. The Big "E" was faster than most and we left our battle group behind, all the TV channels (PLAT/SINS) that show a ship's speed were blacked out, had to be 35kts+!

In FS, one has to manually make wind for the ships, normally done with a weather theme that replicates wind over the deck.
 
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