Knavey
Posts: 3052
Joined: 9/12/2002 From: Valrico, Florida Status: offline
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A little clarification on the Nimitz class carriers. As Feinder said, I was stationed on the TR for a few years. Speed was not really an issue, and truthfully, we NEVER tested in the 4 years I was on it, how fast we could go. Oh, thats not to say that we didn't want to. Do you know any teenager that HASN'T put the pedal to the metal in the family car? We had many "limits" affecting how fast we were able to go. Reactor Power (100%) - but we could very easily taken that set of reactors to pressures and temperatures above what we were allowed in the book. After all, if there is a torpedo in the water after your ***, the book goes out the window. There was a Battleshort switch that would disable many protective features. By enabling the BS switch (and this is no BS) you could push a lot more juice out of the reactors in into the turbines which are attached to the shaft which is attached to the screws, which move that pile of metal. The main number that limited us, was actually the torque applied to the shaft. The number was needless to say, quite high. In the MILLION FOOT LBS of TORQUE range. I forget the exact length of the shaft, but at flank speed (>30 knots) the shaft twisted around it self over 2 times. Condidering that the shafts were several hundred feet long, that is a considerable stress on those things. The rumor was that at one time the Big E decided to see just how fast she could go (before they put shaft torque limits in place) and she busted one of the shafts. Don't know if its true, but if one of those things let loose, it would probably be just like a big bomb going off in respect to damage done. So, I suppose my point is, TR could go really fast, you can probably find the number on the web somewhere, but its sorta fun knowing something that my brother doesn't (hehehe fein), and if you REALLY WANT TO KNOW, join the Nav, become a nuke, stand a few watches as throttleman, and look at the indicator posted just to the starboard side of the EOS door on the TR when they ring up a Flank 171 bell, but just don't forget to watch that shaft torque. Gawd that post brings back some memories...hope you fellow EX squids don't mind.
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x-Nuc twidget CVN-71 USN 87-93 "Going slow in the fast direction"
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