CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread

Blitzo

Lieutenant General
Staff member
Super Moderator
Registered Member
Alright now that the ship's been launched, I gotta ask. Why did they leave part of the bridge without windows? Is that where they put the bathrooms? Where they store their perishable foods? Or maybe the captain is secretly a vampire and can't be exposed to sunlight?

The top/second level is probably for the primary flight control (pri-fly) -- note that the second level extends out more in the port direction over the flight deck, and has a perspective to the rear of the ship as well, i.e.: the second level has a field of view that can surveil the overall flight deck to the front, port and rear side relative to the island.

The bottom/first level is probably the bridge, for navigation of the ship itself -- the first level only has a perspective to the front of the ship, with partial views to the starboard and port directions.


On the Nimitz class, the pri-fly is on the highest level, and you can see that the windows are similarly only on one half of the island, whereas the lower two levels of the island face forwards fully. The pri-fly level also has windows that are a bit larger.
nimitz island.jpeg


The Ford shows it even more obviously.
From the front you can see that only the second level from the top has windows facing forwards the full width of the island, is the navigation bridge.
However you can see multiple other levels where the windows only are on the port half of the island, and from the rear perspective you can see how the levels have a rear view of the flight deck.
I don't know which levels on Ford are its pri-fly, but I bet it would be the topmost one given the marginally greater size of its windows. That combined forward and rear perspective are sufficient for primary flight control purposes of the flight deck.

ford island front.jpgford island back.jpg





.... so the answer as to why the windows on the top level/pri-fly level don't extend the full width of the island, I suspect it's because they don't need it to extend the full width -- extending it the full width wouldn't provide any additional field of view for flight deck control purposes.
 

by78

General
Four more...

52151842437_8dd93b1fb3_h.jpg
52151842487_c02e8ca0e0_h.jpg
52153092709_4a16f3a835_h.jpg

52153037164_550bad0785_h.jpg
 

SAC

Junior Member
Staff member
Moderator - World Affairs
Registered Member
@SAC No problem bro since you lived there for a while, I consider you as one of us cause Xiamen is so beautiful especially the seaside walk, the food is good and I like to walk at night drinking and eating street food especially the oyster cake, grilled oyster and drinking Taiwan milktea.
Xiamen is indeed beautiful, especially the University. But a little expensive to live there. Have you visited the old fort there?
 

Helius

Senior Member
Registered Member
Those large sponsons ar the stern of the Ford class are not just to stick the defensive weapons on top. They contain rooms and aircraft workshop facilities. As big as carriers are, space is still always at a premium.

[snip]
This is in contrast to the Ford, which has dedicated pretty big swathes of surface real estate to those large sponsons at the stern, which I always think is a peculiar design choice to have so much empty space for a lone Mk.25 and RAM on either side, as justified by some ill-defined "future-proofing" rationale for future systems and fixtures that might occupy those spaces, all at the expense of less deck space as if that's not already at a premium which they've now fixed themselves up to have to do without.

[snip]
 
Top