1.
Grumman F-14 Tomcat
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The Grumman F-14 Tomcat is an American supersonic, twin-engine, two-seat, variable-sweep wing fighter aircraft. The Tomcat was developed for the United States Navys Naval Fighter Experimental program after the collapse of the F-111B project, the F-14 was the first of the American teen-series fighters, which were designed incorporating air combat experience against MiG fighters during the Vietnam War. The F-14 first flew in December 1970 and made its first deployment in 1974 with the U. S. Navy aboard USS Enterprise, replacing the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II. The F-14 served as the U. S. Navys primary maritime air superiority fighter, fleet defense interceptor, the Low Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared for Night pod system were added in the 1990s and the Tomcat began performing precision ground-attack missions. In the 1980s F-14s were used as land-based interceptors by the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force during the Iran–Iraq War, where they saw combat against Iraqi warplanes. Iranian F-14s reportedly shot down at least 160 Iraqi aircraft during the war, while only 12 to 16 Tomcats were lost, the Tomcat was retired from the U. S. Navys active fleet on 22 September 2006, having been supplanted by the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. The F-14 remains in service with the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force, the U. S. Navy needed a Fleet Air Defense aircraft with a more powerful radar and longer range missiles than the F-4 Phantom II carried to intercept both enemy bombers and missiles. The Navy was directed to participate in the Tactical Fighter Experimental program with the U. S. Air Force by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. The Navy strenuously opposed the TFX as it feared compromises necessary for the Air Forces need for an attack aircraft would adversely impact the aircrafts performance as a fighter. Weight and performance issues plagued the U. S. Navy F-111B variant for TFX, the F-111 manufacturer General Dynamics partnered with Grumman on the Navy F-111B. With the F-111B program in distress, Grumman began studying improvements, in 1966, the Navy awarded Grumman a contract to begin studying advanced fighter designs. Grumman narrowed down these designs to its 303 design, the Navy studied the need for VFAX, an additional fighter that was agiler than the F-4 Phantom for air-combat and ground-attack roles. Grumman continued work on its 303 design and offered it to the Navy in 1967, the company continued to refine the design into 1968. In July 1968, the Naval Air Systems Command issued a request for proposals for the Naval Fighter Experimental program, VFX called for a tandem two-seat, twin-engined air-to-air fighter with a maximum speed of Mach 2.2. It would also have a built-in M61 Vulcan cannon and a close air support role. The VFXs air-to-air missiles would be either six AIM-54 Phoenix or a combination of six AIM-7 Sparrow, bids were received from General Dynamics, Grumman, Ling-Temco-Vought, McDonnell Douglas and North American Rockwell, four bids incorporated variable-geometry wings. McDonnell Douglas and Grumman were selected as finalists in December 1968, Grumman was selected for the contract award in January 1969. Upon winning the contract for the F-14, Grumman greatly expanded its Calverton, Long Island, much of the testing, including the first of many compressor stalls and multiple ejections, took place over Long Island Sound
2.
USS Saratoga (CV-60)
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USS Saratoga, was the second of four Forrestal-class supercarriers built for the United States Navy in the 1950s. Saratoga was the sixth U. S. Navy ship, commissioned in 1956, she spent most of her career in the Mediterranean, but also participated during the Vietnam War, receiving one battle star for her service. One of her last operational duties was to participate in Operation Desert Storm, Saratoga was decommissioned in 1994, and had been stored at Naval Station Newport in Newport, Rhode Island. Multiple unsuccessful attempts were made to preserve her as a museum ship, the Navy is paying ESCO Marine of Brownsville, Texas, one cent to take the ship for dismantling and recycling. On 15 September 2014, ex-Saratoga arrived in Brownsville, Texas and she was ordered as a Large Aircraft Carrier, hull classification symbol CVB-60, and her contract was awarded to the New York Naval Shipyard of Brooklyn, New York on 23 July 1952. She is the second of the four Forrestal-class carriers and she was reclassified as an Attack Aircraft Carrier on 1 October 1952. Her keel was laid down on 16 December 1952 and she was launched on 8 October 1955 sponsored by Mrs. Charles S. Thomas, and commissioned on 14 April 1956 with CAPT Robert Joseph Stroh in command. She was the first carrier in the US Navy to use high-pressure 1,200 psi boilers, for the next several months, Saratoga conducted various engineering, flight, steering, structural, and gunnery tests. On 18 August, she sailed for Guantanamo Bay and her shakedown cruise, on 19 December, she reentered the New York Naval Shipyard and remained there until 28 February 1957. Upon completion of work, she got underway on a refresher training cruise to the Caribbean before entering her home port, Naval Station Mayport in Mayport. On 6 June 1957, President of the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower, for two days, she and eighteen other ships demonstrated air operations, antisubmarine warfare, guided missile operations, and the Navys latest bombing and strafing techniques. Also in 1957, Saratoga conducted Regulus guided missile tests, the carrier departed Mayport on 3 September 1957 for her maiden transatlantic voyage. Saratoga sailed into the Norwegian Sea and participated in Operation Strikeback and she returned briefly to Mayport before entering the Norfolk Naval Shipyard for repairs. On 1 February 1958, Saratoga departed Mayport for the Mediterranean, from this date through 31 December 1967 she was to spend a part of each year in the Mediterranean on a total of eight cruises. The remainder of the time, she operated off the coast of Florida or was in port undergoing restricted availability. On the night of 24–25 May 1960, Saratoga collided with the German freighter Bernd Leonhardt off North Carolina, the freighters bridge and superstructure were damaged by the carriers flight-deck. The results of an investigation were never published, but repairs to the freighter, while deployed with the Sixth Fleet on 23 January 1961, a serious fire broke out in Saratogas number two machinery space which took seven lives. The fire, believed caused by a fuel oil line, was brought under control by the crew, and the ship proceeded to Athens, Greece
3.
Aircraft
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An aircraft is a machine that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the lift of an airfoil. The human activity that surrounds aircraft is called aviation, crewed aircraft are flown by an onboard pilot, but unmanned aerial vehicles may be remotely controlled or self-controlled by onboard computers. Aircraft may be classified by different criteria, such as type, aircraft propulsion, usage. Each of the two World Wars led to technical advances. Consequently, the history of aircraft can be divided into five eras, Pioneers of flight, first World War,1914 to 1918. Aviation between the World Wars,1918 to 1939, Second World War,1939 to 1945. Postwar era, also called the jet age,1945 to the present day, aerostats use buoyancy to float in the air in much the same way that ships float on the water. They are characterized by one or more large gasbags or canopies, filled with a relatively low-density gas such as helium, hydrogen, or hot air, which is less dense than the surrounding air. When the weight of this is added to the weight of the aircraft structure, a balloon was originally any aerostat, while the term airship was used for large, powered aircraft designs – usually fixed-wing. In 1919 Frederick Handley Page was reported as referring to ships of the air, in the 1930s, large intercontinental flying boats were also sometimes referred to as ships of the air or flying-ships. – though none had yet been built, the advent of powered balloons, called dirigible balloons, and later of rigid hulls allowing a great increase in size, began to change the way these words were used. Huge powered aerostats, characterized by an outer framework and separate aerodynamic skin surrounding the gas bags, were produced. There were still no fixed-wing aircraft or non-rigid balloons large enough to be called airships, then several accidents, such as the Hindenburg disaster in 1937, led to the demise of these airships. Nowadays a balloon is an aerostat and an airship is a powered one. A powered, steerable aerostat is called a dirigible, sometimes this term is applied only to non-rigid balloons, and sometimes dirigible balloon is regarded as the definition of an airship. Non-rigid dirigibles are characterized by a moderately aerodynamic gasbag with stabilizing fins at the back and these soon became known as blimps. During the Second World War, this shape was adopted for tethered balloons, in windy weather
4.
Ship
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Historically, a ship was a sailing vessel with at least three square-rigged masts and a full bowsprit. Ships are generally distinguished from boats, based on size, shape, Ships have been important contributors to human migration and commerce. They have supported the spread of colonization and the trade, but have also served scientific, cultural. After the 16th century, new crops that had come from, Ship transport is responsible for the largest portion of world commerce. As of 2016, there were more than 49,000 merchant ships, of these 28% were oil tankers, 43% were bulk carriers, and 13% were container ships. Military forces operate vessels for naval warfare and to transport and support forces ashore, the top 50 navies had a median fleet of 88 surface vessels each, according to various sources. There is no definition of what distinguishes a ship from a boat. Ships can usually be distinguished from boats based on size and the ability to operate independently for extended periods. A legal definition of ship from Indian case law is a vessel that carries goods by sea, a common notion is that a ship can carry a boat, but not vice versa. American and British 19th Century maritime law distinguished vessels from other craft, ships and boats fall in one legal category, a number of large vessels are usually referred to as boats. Other types of vessel which are traditionally called boats are Great Lakes freighters, riverboats. Though large enough to carry their own boats and heavy cargoes, in most maritime traditions ships have individual names, and modern ships may belong to a ship class often named after its first ship. The first known vessels date back about 10,000 years ago, the first navigators began to use animal skins or woven fabrics as sails. Affixed to the top of a pole set upright in a boat and this allowed men to explore widely, allowing for the settlement of Oceania for example. By around 3000 BC, Ancient Egyptians knew how to assemble wooden planks into a hull and they used woven straps to lash the planks together, and reeds or grass stuffed between the planks helped to seal the seams. Sneferus ancient cedar wood ship Praise of the Two Lands is the first reference recorded to a ship being referred to by name, the ancient Egyptians were perfectly at ease building sailboats. A remarkable example of their skills was the Khufu ship. Aksum was known by the Greeks for having seaports for ships from Greece, a panel found at Mohenjodaro depicted a sailing craft
5.
Aircraft carrier
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An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the ship of a fleet, as it allows a naval force to project air power worldwide without depending on local bases for staging aircraft operations. Aircraft carriers are expensive to build and are critical assets, there is no single definition of an aircraft carrier, and modern navies use several variants of the type. These variants are sometimes categorized as sub-types of aircraft carriers, Aircraft carriers may be classified according to the type of aircraft they carry and their operational assignments. Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, former head of the Royal Navy, has said, To put it simply, as of April 2017, there are 37 active aircraft carriers in the world within twelve navies. The United States Navy has 10 large nuclear-powered fleet carriers, the largest carriers in the world, the Royal Navy of Great Britain is building two 280-m / 920-ft carriers, the Queen Elizabeth, and the Prince of Wales scheduled to go into service in 2020-2023. These are the largest carriers capable of fast speeds, by comparison, escort carriers were developed to provide defense for convoys of ships. They were smaller and slower with lower numbers of aircraft carried, most were built from mercantile hulls or, in the case of merchant aircraft carriers, were bulk cargo ships with a flight deck added on top. Light aircraft carriers were fast enough to operate with the main fleet, three nations currently operate carriers of this type, ten by the United States, and one each by France and Brazil for a total of twelve in service. Short take-off but arrested-recovery, these carriers are generally limited to carrying lighter fixed-wing aircraft with more limited payloads, currently, Russia, China, and India possess commissioned carriers of this type. Short take-off vertical-landing, limited to carrying STOVL aircraft and this type of aircraft carrier is currently in service with Italy. Some also count the nine US amphibious assault ships in their secondary light carrier role boosting the total to thirteen. Helicopter carrier, Helicopter carriers have an appearance to other aircraft carriers. Some are designed for addition of, or may include, a ski jump ramp allowing for STOVL operations or may have a ski jump installed before retirement of STOVL aircraft. In the past, some conventional carriers were converted and called commando carriers by the Royal Navy, some helicopter carriers with a resistant flight surface can operate STOVL jets. Currently the majority of carriers, but not all, are classified as amphibious assault ships. The US has nine of this type, France and Japan three, Australia two, the UK one, the Republic of Korea one and Spain one, the US and Spains amphibious assault ships operate STOVL jets in normal deployment. Supercarrier Fleet carrier Light aircraft carrier Escort carrier Several systems of identification symbol for aircraft carriers, two months later, on 18 January 1911, Ely landed his Curtiss pusher airplane on a platform on the armored cruiser USS Pennsylvania anchored in San Francisco Bay
6.
Assisted take-off
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Assisted takeoff is any system for helping aircraft into the air. Assisted takeoff is also required for gliders, which do not have an engine and are unable to take off by themselves, a well-known type of assisted takeoff is an aircraft catapult. In modern systems fitted on aircraft carriers, a piston, known as a shuttle, is propelled down a long cylinder under steam pressure, the United States is replacing carrier steam catapults with linear induction motors. The system is called the aircraft launch system. An electromagnetic wave traveling through the motor propels the armature along its length, with this system, it will be possible to match launch power and aircraft weight more closely than with the steam system, causing less wear on the aircraft. The catapult approach is used for towing gliders into the air. This can be accomplished using an elastic bungee cord arrangement, or more using a cable wound onto a winch. The bungee approach is used for man-carrying gliders, as the acceleration is uncontrolled. It is commonly used to launch model gliders however, manned gliders are commonly launched simply by towing them aloft behind a powered aircraft. In the JATO and RATO systems, additional engines are mounted on the airframe which are used only during takeoff, after that the engines are usually jettisoned, or else they just add to the parasitic weight and drag of the aircraft. However, some such as the Avro Shackleton MR.3 Phase 2, had permanently attached JATO engines. The four J-47 turbojet engines on the B-36 were not considered JATO systems, they were a part of the aircrafts powerplants, and were used during takeoff, climb. During WW2 the German Arado Ar 234 and the Messerschmitt Me 323 Gigant used rocket units beneath the wings for assisted takeoff, such systems were popular during the 1950s, when heavy bombers started to require two or more miles of runway to take off fully laden. In a Cold War context, RATO and JATO bottles were seen as a way for aircraft to use the undamaged sections of runways of airfields which had been attacked. Early pioneers in powered and unpowered flight used gravity to accelerate their aircraft to a speed which allowed its wings to generate lift to achieve independent flight. These included attempts to achieve flight from towers, city walls, generally more successful were attempts in which speed was built up by accelerating down hills and mountain slopes, sometimes on rails or ramps. Probably the ultimate form of gravity assistance is when an aircraft is released from a mother ship or mother craft. This may be because the daughter craft is incapable of taking off normally e. g. the atmospheric flight tests of the Space Shuttle
7.
Flight deck
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The flight deck of an aircraft carrier is the surface from which its aircraft take off and land, essentially a miniature airfield at sea. On smaller naval ships which do not have aviation as a primary mission, the official U. S. Navy term for these vessels is air-capable ships. The first flight decks were inclined wooden ramps built over the forecastle of warships, eugene Ely made the first fixed-wing aircraft take-off from a warship from USS Birmingham on 14 November 1910. Ely told a reporter, It was easy enough, I think the trick could be successfully turned nine times out of ten. On 9 May 1912, Commander Charles Samson became the first man to take off from a ship which was underway when he flew his Short S.27 off of HMS Hibernia, which was steaming at 10.5 kn. Because the take-off speed of aircraft was so low, it was possible for an aircraft to make a very short take off when the launching ship was steaming into the wind. The landing arrangements on Furious were highly unsatisfactory, in order to land, aircraft had to manoeuvre around the superstructure. Furious was therefore returned to dockyard hands to have a 300 ft deck added aft for landing, the central superstructure remained, however, and turbulence caused by it badly affected the landing deck. Because of her flight deck, Argus had no fixed conning tower. Rather, exhaust gases were trunked down the side of the ship, the lack of a command position and funnel was unsatisfactory, and Argus was used to experiment with various ideas to remedy the solution. A photograph in 1917 shows her with a canvas mock-up of an island superstructure. This became the aircraft carrier arrangement and was used in the next British carriers, Hermes. Being large and fast they were suited to this role. Because the military effectiveness of aircraft carriers was then unknown, early ships were equipped with cruiser-calibre guns to aid in their defense if surprised by enemy warships. In ships of this configuration, the deck was the strength deck and an integral part of the hull. Such ships were still being built into the late 1940s, classic examples being the U. S. Navys Essex, however, in 1936, the Royal Navy began construction of the Illustrious class. In these ships, the deck was the strength deck, an integral part of the hull. The flight deck as the deck was adopted for later construction
8.
Landing gear
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Landing gear is the undercarriage of an aircraft or spacecraft and may be used for either takeoff or landing. For aircraft it is generally both, for aircraft, the landing gear supports the craft when it is not flying, allowing it to take off, land, and taxi without damage. Faster aircraft usually have retractable undercarriages, which folds away during flight to reduce air resistance or drag, for launch vehicles and spacecraft landers, the landing gear is typically designed to support the vehicle only post-flight, and are typically not used for takeoff or surface movement. Aircraft landing gear usually includes wheels equipped with shock absorbers, or more advanced air/oil oleo struts, for runway. Some aircraft are equipped with skis for snow or floats for water, the undercarriage is a relatively heavy part of the vehicle, it can be as much as 7% of the takeoff weight, but more typically is 4–5%. The taildragger arrangement was common during the early era, as it allows more room for propeller clearance. Most modern aircraft have tricycle undercarriages, taildraggers are considered harder to land and take off, and usually require special pilot training. Sometimes a small wheel or skid is added to aircraft with tricycle undercarriage. Concorde, for instance, had a tail bumper wheel. Both Boeinga largest WW II bomber, the B-29 Superfortress and the 1960s-introduction Boeing 727 trijet airliner each have a tail bumper. Some aircraft with conventional landing gear have a fixed tailwheel. Another arrangement sometimes used is central main and nose gear with outriggers on the wings and this may be done where there is no convenient location on either side to attach the main undercarriage or to store it when retracted. Examples include the Lockheed U-2 spy plane and the Harrier Jump Jet, to decrease drag in flight some undercarriages retract into the wings and/or fuselage with wheels flush against the surface or concealed behind doors, this is called retractable gear. If the wheels rest protruding and partially exposed to the airstream after being retracted, most retraction systems are hydraulically operated, though some are electrically operated or even manually operated. This adds weight and complexity to the design, in retractable gear systems, the compartment where the wheels are stowed are called wheel wells, which may also diminish valuable cargo or fuel space. Pilots confirming that their landing gear is down and locked refer to three green or three in the green, a reference to the electrical indicator lights from the nosewheel/tailwheel and the two main gears. Red lights indicate the gear is in the position, amber lights indicate that the landing gear is in transit. Multiple redundancies are usually provided to prevent a failure from failing the entire landing gear extension process
9.
Wire rope
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Wire rope is rope made from wire. It consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a helix, initially wrought iron wires were used, but today steel is the main material used for wire ropes. Historically wire rope evolved from wrought iron chains, which had a record of mechanical failure. While flaws in chain links or solid steel bars can lead to catastrophic failure, friction between the individual wires and strands, as a consequence of their twist, further compensates for any flaws. Wire ropes were developed starting with mining hoist applications in the 1830s, Wire ropes are used dynamically for lifting and hoisting in cranes and elevators, and for transmission of mechanical power. Wire rope is used to transmit force in mechanisms, such as a Bowden cable or the control surfaces of an airplane connected to levers. Also, aircraft cables are available in smaller diameters than wire rope, for example, aircraft cables are available in 3/64 in. Diameter while most wire ropes begin at a 1/4 in, static wire ropes are used to support structures such as suspension bridges or as guy wires to support towers. An aerial tramway relies on wire rope to support and move cargo overhead, modern wire rope was invented by the German mining engineer Wilhelm Albert in the years between 1831 and 1834 for use in mining in the Harz Mountains in Clausthal, Lower Saxony, Germany. It was quickly accepted because it proved superior to ropes made of hemp or to metal chains, Wilhelm Alberts first ropes consisted of three strands consisting of four wires each. In 1840, Scotsman Robert Stirling Newall improved the process further, the decades were witness to a burgeoning increase in deep shaft mining in both Europe and North America as surface mineral deposits were exhausted and miner had to chase layers along inclined layers. To drive their first shafts into lower slopes beginning Lansford and its Schuylkill County twin-town Coaldale, the German engineering firm of Adolf Bleichert & Co. was founded in 1874 and began to build bicable aerial tramways for mining in the Ruhr Valley. Adolf Bleichert & Co. went on to hundreds of aerial tramways around the world, from Alaska to Argentina, Australia. The Bleichert company also built hundreds of aerial tramways for both the Imperial German Army and the Wehrmacht, in the last half of the 19th century, wire rope systems were used as a means of transmitting mechanical power including for the new cable cars. Wire rope systems cost one-tenth as much and had lower friction losses than line shafts, because of these advantages, wire rope systems were used to transmit power for a distance of a few miles or kilometers. In America wire rope was later manufactured by John A. Roebling, forming the basis for his success in suspension bridge building, Roebling introduced a number of innovations in the design, materials and manufacture of wire rope. Steel wires for wire ropes are made of non-alloy carbon steel with a carbon content of 0.4 to 0. 95%. The very high strength of the wires enables wire ropes to support large tensile forces
10.
Aircraft catapult
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An aircraft catapult is a device used to launch aircraft from ships, most commonly used on aircraft carriers, as a form of assisted take off. Different means have been used to propel the catapult, such as weight and derrick, gunpowder, flywheel, air pressure, hydraulic, and steam power. The U. S. Navy is developing the use of Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch Systems with the construction of the Gerald R. Ford class aircraft carrier, aviation pioneer and Smithsonian Secretary Samuel Langley used a spring-operated catapult to launch his successful flying models and his failed aerodrome of 1903. Likewise the Wright Brothers beginning in 1904 used a weight and derrick styled catapult to assist their early aircraft with a takeoff in a limited distance, on 31 July 1912, Theodore Gordon Ellyson became the first person to be launched from a U. S. Navy catapult system. The Navy had been perfecting a compressed-air catapult system and mounted it on the Santee Dock in Annapolis, the first attempt nearly killed Lt. Ellyson when the plane left the ramp with its nose pointing upward and it caught a crosswind, pushing the plane into the water. Ellyson was able to escape from the wreckage unhurt, on 12 November 1912, Lt. Ellyson made history as the Navys first successful catapult launch, from a stationary coal barge. On 5 November 1915, LCDR Henry C, mustin made the first catapult launch from a ship underway. The US Navy experimented with other sources and models, including catapults that utilized gunpowder. On 14 December 1924, a Martin MO-1 observation plane flown by Lt. L. C, hayden was launched from USS Langley using a catapult powered by gunpowder. Following this launch, this method was used aboard both cruisers and battleships, up to and during World War II, most catapults were hydraulic. They were mostly used for experimental purposes, and their use was discontinued during the latter half of the war. Many naval vessels apart from aircraft carriers carried float planes, seaplanes or amphibians for reconnaissance and they were catapult-launched and landed on the sea alongside for recovery by crane. There were submarine aircraft carriers, and some Japanese submarines used them for offensive operations also, the first launch off a Royal Navy battlecruiser was from HMAS Australia on 8 March 1918. The aircraft carried were the Fairey Seafox or Supermarine Walrus, some like HMS Nelson did not use a catapult, and the aircraft was lowered onto the sea for takeoff. Some had their aircraft and catapult removed during WWII e. g. HMS Duke of York and these were used for convoy escort duties to drive off enemy reconnaissance bombers. CAM ships carried a Hawker Sea Hurricane, dubbed a Hurricat or Catafighter, ground-launched V-1s were typically propelled up an inclined launch ramp by an apparatus known as a Dampferzeuger. Following World War II, the Royal Navy was developing a new system for their fleet of carriers. Mitchell, RNV, recommended a system as an effective
11.
Weight
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In science and engineering, the weight of an object is usually taken to be the force on the object due to gravity. Weight is a vector whose magnitude, often denoted by an italic letter W, is the product of the m of the object. The unit of measurement for weight is that of force, which in the International System of Units is the newton. For example, an object with a mass of one kilogram has a weight of about 9.8 newtons on the surface of the Earth, in this sense of weight, a body can be weightless only if it is far away from any other mass. Although weight and mass are scientifically distinct quantities, the terms are often confused with other in everyday use. There is also a tradition within Newtonian physics and engineering which sees weight as that which is measured when one uses scales. There the weight is a measure of the magnitude of the force exerted on a body. Typically, in measuring an objects weight, the object is placed on scales at rest with respect to the earth, thus, in a state of free fall, the weight would be zero. In this second sense of weight, terrestrial objects can be weightless, ignoring air resistance, the famous apple falling from the tree, on its way to meet the ground near Isaac Newton, is weightless. Further complications in elucidating the various concepts of weight have to do with the theory of relativity according to gravity is modelled as a consequence of the curvature of spacetime. In the teaching community, a debate has existed for over half a century on how to define weight for their students. The current situation is that a set of concepts co-exist. Discussion of the concepts of heaviness and lightness date back to the ancient Greek philosophers and these were typically viewed as inherent properties of objects. Plato described weight as the tendency of objects to seek their kin. To Aristotle weight and levity represented the tendency to restore the order of the basic elements, air, earth, fire. He ascribed absolute weight to earth and absolute levity to fire, archimedes saw weight as a quality opposed to buoyancy, with the conflict between the two determining if an object sinks or floats. The first operational definition of weight was given by Euclid, who defined weight as, weight is the heaviness or lightness of one thing, compared to another, operational balances had, however, been around much longer. According to Aristotle, weight was the cause of the falling motion of an object
12.
Derrick
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A derrick is a lifting device composed at minimum of one guyed mast, as in a gin pole, which may be articulated over a load by adjusting its guys. Most derricks have at least two components, either a guyed mast or self-supporting tower, and a boom hinged at its base to provide articulation, as in a stiffleg derrick. The most basic type of derrick is controlled by three or four lines connected to the top of the mast, which allow it both to move laterally and cant up and down. To lift a load, a line runs up and over the mast with a hook on its free end. Forms of derricks are commonly found aboard ships and at docking facilities, some large derricks are mounted on dedicated vessels, and known as floating derricks and sheerlegs. The term derrick is also applied to the framework supporting a drilling apparatus in an oil rig, the derrick derives its name from a type of gallows named after Thomas Derrick, an Elizabethan era English executioner. There are crossbars to connect the two poles, forming a letter A shape tower, the tower is ground anchored to provide support. A boom is hinged from the lowest cross bar and extends outward and upward, the top end of the boom is connected to a pulley system which is connected to the top of the tower. Manipulating the pulley system will allow the boom to change the angle against the tower, there is another pulley system to connect to the top of the boom for load lifting. When an A-frame derrick is used in a vessel, it is called floating A-frame derrick, a basket derrick is a derrick without a boom that is supported by a rope-and-pole system that forms a basket. The basket is constructed from a group of poles to form a polygon, there are crossbars between the pole members to strengthen their support. The derrick tower can be a mast or a post with the bottom hinged at the base where all ropes meet. The top of the tower is secured with multiple reeved guys to position the top of the tower to the location by varying the length of the upper guy lines. The load is lifted using a system connected to the top of the tower. A breast derrick is a derrick without a boom with a mast constructed from two upright members, the upright members are more spread at their bottom ends than their top ends. There are crossbars to join the two members from the bottom to the top to form a mast, without the use of boom, the top crossbar is also used to connect to a sheave or a block that is used for lifting the load. The mast is prevented from tipping forward by guys connected to its top, a Chicago boom derrick is a derrick with a boom which is attached to an external structure. The external upright member of the structure serves as the mast, the boom is connected to at least three pulley systems to control the position of the boom
13.
Gunpowder
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Gunpowder, also known as black powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate, the sulfur and charcoal act as fuels, and the saltpeter is an oxidizer. Black powder firearms are in limited use today in hunting, shooting, Black powder has been replaced for most industrial uses by high explosives such as dynamite. Black powder is assigned the UN number UN0027 and has a class of 1. 1D. It has a point of approximately 427–464 °C. The specific flash point may vary based on the composition of the gunpowder. Gunpowders specific gravity is 1. 70–1.82 or 1. 92–2.08, Gunpowder is classified as a low explosive because of its relatively slow decomposition rate and consequently low brisance. Low explosives deflagrate at subsonic speeds, whereas high explosives detonate, ignition of the powder packed behind a bullet must generate enough pressure to force it from the muzzle at high speed, but not enough to rupture the gun barrel. Gunpowder thus makes a good propellant, but is suitable for shattering rock or fortifications. Gunpowder was widely used to fill artillery shells and in mining and civil engineering to blast rock until the half of the 19th century. Black powder is used as a delay element in various munitions where its slow-burning properties are valuable. The spread of gunpowder across Asia from China is widely attributed to the Mongols, the earliest record of a written formula for gunpowder appears in the 11th century Song dynasty text, Wujing Zongyao. This discovery led to the invention of fireworks and the earliest gunpowder weapons in China, in the centuries following the Chinese discovery, gunpowder weapons began appearing in the Muslim world and Europe. The technology spread from China through the Middle East or Central Asia, the earliest Western accounts of gunpowder appear in texts written by English philosopher Roger Bacon in the 13th century. The most ardent protagonists were Nathaniel Halhad, Johann Backmann, Quintin Craufurd, however, due to lack of sufficient proof, these theories have not been widely accepted. A major problem confronting the study of the history of gunpowder is ready access to sources close to the events described. The translation difficulty has led to errors or loose interpretations bordering on artistic licence, early writings potentially mentioning gunpowder are sometimes marked by a linguistic process where old words acquired new meanings. For instance, the Arabic word naft transitioned from denoting naphtha to denoting gunpowder, saltpeter was known to the Chinese by the mid-1st century AD and there is strong evidence of the use of saltpeter and sulfur in various largely medicinal combinations
14.
Flywheel
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A flywheel is a mechanical device specifically designed to efficiently store rotational energy. Flywheels resist changes in speed by their moment of inertia. The amount of stored in a flywheel is proportional to the square of its rotational speed. For example flywheels are used in reciprocating engines because the torque from the individual pistons is intermittent. Energy storage systems Flywheel energy storage Delivering energy at rates beyond the ability of an energy source and this is achieved by collecting energy in a flywheel over time and then releasing it quickly, at rates that exceed the abilities of the energy source. High energy density flywheels can be made of fiber composites and employ magnetic bearings. Carbon-composite flywheel batteries have recently been manufactured and are proving to be viable in real-world tests on mainstream cars, additionally, their disposal is more eco-friendly. Flywheels are often used to provide power output in systems where the energy source is not continuous. For example, a flywheel is used to smooth fast angular velocity fluctuations of the crankshaft in a reciprocating engine. In this case, a crankshaft flywheel stores energy when torque is exerted on it by a firing piston, another example is the friction motor which powers devices such as toy cars. In unstressed and inexpensive cases to save on cost the bulk of the mass of the flywheel is toward the rim of the wheel, pushing the mass away from the axis of rotation heightens rotational inertia for a given total mass. A flywheel may also be used to supply intermittent pulses of energy at power levels that exceed the abilities of its energy source, for example flywheels are used in power hammers and riveting machines. Flywheels can be used to control direction and oppose unwanted motions, a flywheel is a spinning wheel, or disc, or rotor, rotating around its symmetry axis. The moment of inertia is a measure of resistance to torque applied on a spinning object. When calculating with SI units, the units would be for mass, kilograms, for radius, meters, and for angular velocity, radians per second, increasing amounts of rotation energy can be stored in the flywheel until the rotor shatters. This happens when the stress within the rotor exceeds the ultimate tensile strength of the rotor material. Flywheels are made from different materials, the application determines the choice of material. Small flywheels made of lead are found in children’s toys, cast iron flywheels are used in old steam engines
15.
Atmospheric pressure
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Atmospheric pressure, sometimes also called barometric pressure, is the pressure exerted by the weight of air in the atmosphere of Earth. In most circumstances atmospheric pressure is approximated by the hydrostatic pressure caused by the weight of air above the measurement point. As elevation increases, there is less overlying atmospheric mass, so that atmospheric pressure decreases with increasing elevation. On average, a column of air one square centimetre in cross-section, measured from sea level to the top of the atmosphere, has a mass of about 1.03 kilograms and that force is a pressure of 10.1 N/cm2 or 101 kN/m2. A column 1 square inch in cross-section would have a weight of about 14.7 lb or about 65.4 N and it is modified by the planetary rotation and local effects such as wind velocity, density variations due to temperature and variations in composition. The standard atmosphere is a unit of pressure defined as 101325 Pa, the mean sea level pressure is the average atmospheric pressure at sea level. This is the pressure normally given in weather reports on radio, television. When barometers in the home are set to match the weather reports, they measure pressure adjusted to sea level. The altimeter setting in aviation, is an atmospheric pressure adjustment, average sea-level pressure is 1013.25 mbar. In aviation weather reports, QNH is transmitted around the world in millibars or hectopascals, except in the United States, Canada, however, in Canadas public weather reports, sea level pressure is instead reported in kilopascals. The highest sea-level pressure on Earth occurs in Siberia, where the Siberian High often attains a sea-level pressure above 1050 mbar, the lowest measurable sea-level pressure is found at the centers of tropical cyclones and tornadoes, with a record low of 870 mbar. Pressure varies smoothly from the Earths surface to the top of the mesosphere, although the pressure changes with the weather, NASA has averaged the conditions for all parts of the earth year-round. As altitude increases, atmospheric pressure decreases, one can calculate the atmospheric pressure at a given altitude. Temperature and humidity affect the atmospheric pressure, and it is necessary to know these to compute an accurate figure. The graph at right was developed for a temperature of 15 °C, at low altitudes above the sea level, the pressure decreases by about 1.2 kPa for every 100 meters. See pressure system for the effects of air pressure variations on weather, Atmospheric pressure shows a diurnal or semidiurnal cycle caused by global atmospheric tides. This effect is strongest in tropical zones, with an amplitude of a few millibars and these variations have two superimposed cycles, a circadian cycle and semi-circadian cycle. The highest adjusted-to-sea level barometric pressure recorded on Earth was 1085.7 hPa measured in Tosontsengel
16.
Hydraulics
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Hydraulics is a technology and applied science using engineering, chemistry, and other sciences involving the mechanical properties and use of liquids or fluids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the version of pneumatics. Fluid mechanics provides the foundation for hydraulics, which focuses on the applied engineering using the properties of fluids. In fluid power, hydraulics are used for the generation, control, hydraulic topics range through some parts of science and most of engineering modules, and cover concepts such as pipe flow, dam design, fluidics and fluid control circuitry, pumps. The principles of hydraulics are in use naturally in the body within the heart. Free surface hydraulics is the branch of hydraulics dealing with surface flow, such as occurring in rivers, canals, lakes, estuaries. Its sub-field open channel flow studies the flow in open channels, the word hydraulics originates from the Greek word ὑδραυλικός which in turn originates from ὕδωρ and αὐλός. Early uses of water power date back to Mesopotamia and ancient Egypt, other early examples of water power include the Qanat system in ancient Persia and the Turpan water system in ancient Central Asia. The Greeks constructed sophisticated water and hydraulic power systems, an example is the construction by Eupalinos, under a public contract, of a watering channel for Samos, the Tunnel of Eupalinos. An early example of the usage of hydraulic wheel, probably the earliest in Europe, is the Perachora wheel, notable is the construction of the first hydraulic automata by Ctesibius and Hero of Alexandria. Hero describes a number of working machines using hydraulic power, such as the force pump, in ancient China there was Sunshu Ao, Ximen Bao, Du Shi, Zhang Heng, and Ma Jun, while medieval China had Su Song and Shen Kuo. Du Shi employed a waterwheel to power the bellows of a blast furnace producing cast iron, Zhang Heng was the first to employ hydraulics to provide motive power in rotating an armillary sphere for astronomical observation. In ancient Sri Lanka, hydraulics were used in the ancient kingdoms of Anuradhapura. The discovery of the principle of the tower, or valve pit. By the first century AD, several irrigation works had been completed. The coral on the rock at the site includes cisterns for collecting water. They were among the first to use of the siphon to carry water across valleys. They used lead widely in plumbing systems for domestic and public supply, hydraulic mining was used in the gold-fields of northern Spain, which was conquered by Augustus in 25 BC
17.
Steam engine
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A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. Steam engines are combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be used. The ideal thermodynamic cycle used to analyze this process is called the Rankine cycle, in the cycle, water is heated and transforms into steam within a boiler operating at a high pressure. When expanded through pistons or turbines, mechanical work is done, the reduced-pressure steam is then exhausted to the atmosphere, or condensed and pumped back into the boiler. Specialized devices such as hammers and steam pile drivers are dependent on the steam pressure supplied from a separate boiler. The use of boiling water to mechanical motion goes back over 2000 years. The Spanish inventor Jerónimo de Ayanz y Beaumont obtained the first patent for an engine in 1606. In 1698 Thomas Savery patented a steam pump that used steam in direct contact with the water being pumped, Saverys steam pump used condensing steam to create a vacuum and draw water into a chamber, and then applied pressurized steam to further pump the water. Thomas Newcomens atmospheric engine was the first commercial steam engine using a piston. In 1781 James Watt patented an engine that produced continuous rotary motion. Watts ten-horsepower engines enabled a range of manufacturing machinery to be powered. The engines could be sited anywhere that water and coal or wood fuel could be obtained, by 1883, engines that could provide 10,000 hp had become feasible. The stationary steam engine was a key component of the Industrial Revolution, the aeolipile described by Hero of Alexandria in the 1st century AD is considered to be the first recorded steam engine. Torque was produced by steam jets exiting the turbine, in the Spanish Empire, the great inventor Jerónimo de Ayanz y Beaumont obtained a patent for the first steam engine in history in 1603. Thomas Savery, in 1698, patented the first practical, atmospheric pressure and it had no piston or moving parts, only taps. It was an engine, a kind of thermic syphon, in which steam was admitted to an empty container. The vacuum thus created was used to water from the sump at the bottom of the mine
18.
Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System
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The main advantage is that this system allows for a more graded acceleration, inducing less stress on the aircrafts airframe. Other advantages include lower system weight, with a lower cost. The design includes the ability to launch aircraft that are heavier or lighter than the system can accommodate. In addition, the system requires far less water, reducing the need for energy-intensive desalination. Steam catapults were developed in the 1950s and have been exceptionally reliable, for over 50 years, at least one of the four catapults has been able to launch an aircraft 99. 5% of the time. However, there are a number of drawbacks, one group of Navy engineers wrote, The foremost deficiency is that the catapult operates without feedback control. With no feedback, there often occurs large transients in tow force that can damage or reduce the life of the airframe, the steam system is massive, inefficient, and hard to control. These control problems allow Nimitz-class steam-powered catapults to launch aircraft, but not aircraft as light as many UAVs. The EMALS is being developed by General Atomics for the U. S. Navys newest aircraft carriers, a somewhat similar system, Westinghouses electropult, had been developed in 1946 but not deployed. The EMALS uses an induction motor, which uses electric currents to generate magnetic fields that propel a carriage along a track to launch the aircraft. The EMALS consists of four elements, The linear induction motor consists of a row of stator coils that have the function of a conventional motor’s armature. When energized, the motor accelerates the carriage along the track, only the section of the coils surrounding the carriage is energized at any given time, thereby minimizing reactive losses. The EMALS 300-foot LIM will accelerate a 100, 000-pound aircraft to 130 kn, during a launch, the induction motor requires a large surge of electric power that exceeds what the ships own continuous power source can provide. Each rotor delivers up to 121 MJ from 6400 rpm and can be recharged within 45 seconds of a launch, a max launch using 121 MJ of energy from each disk alternator slows the rotors from 6400 rpm to 5205 rpm. During launch, the power conversion subsystem releases the energy from the disk alternators using a cycloconverter. The cycloconverter provides a controlled rising frequency and voltage to the LIM, operators control the power through a closed loop system. Hall effect sensors on the track monitor its operation, allowing the system to ensure that it provides the desired acceleration, the closed loop system allows the EMALS to maintain a constant tow force, which helps reduce launch stresses on the plane’s airframe. Aircraft Compatibility Testing Phase 1 concluded in late 2011 following 134 launches using the EMALS demonstrator installed at Naval Air Engineering Station Lakehurst, 1–2 June 2010, Successful launch of a T-45 Goshawk
19.
Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier
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Gerald R. Ford class is a class of supercarriers being built to replace some of the United States Navys existing Nimitz-class carriers with the delivery of CVN-78, USS Gerald R. Ford. Carriers of the Ford class will have, Advanced arresting gear, automation, allowing a crew of several hundred fewer than the Nimitz-class carrier. The updated RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow missile system, an AN/SPY-3 X Band multifunction radar and an AN/SPY-4 S Band volume search radar. Designated together as Dual Band Radar, initially developed for the Zumwalt-class destroyers, an Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System in place of traditional steam catapults for launching aircraft. A new nuclear reactor design for greater power generation, stealth features to help reduce radar cross-section. The US Navy aims to use equipment and extensive automation to reduce the crew size. The biggest visible difference from earlier supercarriers will be the aft location of the island. Ships of the Ford class are intended to sustain 160 sorties per day for 30-plus days, the current Nimitz-class aircraft carrier in US naval service has been part of United States power projection strategy since Nimitz was commissioned in 1975. The endurance of this class is exemplified by USS Theodore Roosevelt, the Nimitz design has accommodated many new technologies over the decades, but it has limited ability to support the most recent technical advances. With these constraints in mind, the US Navy developed what was known as the CVN-21 program. Improvements were made through developing technologies and more efficient design, technological advances in electromagnetics have led to the development of an Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System and an Advanced Arresting Gear. An integrated warfare system, the Ship Self-Defense System, has developed to allow the ship to more easily take on new missions. The new Dual Band Radar combines S-band and X-band radar, flight deck changes support the requirements for a higher sortie rate, around 160 a day with surges to 270. Changes to the deck are the most visible differences between the Nimitz and Gerald R. Ford classes. Several sections have been altered to improve handling, storage. Catapult No.4 on the Nimitz class cannot launch fully loaded aircraft because of a deficiency of wing clearance along the edge of the flight deck, CVN-78 will have no catapult-specific restrictions on launching aircraft, but still retains four catapults, two bow and two waist. The number of lifts from hangar deck to flight deck level was reduced from four to three. Another major change is that the smaller, redesigned island will be further aft than those of older carriers, fewer aircraft movements require, in turn, fewer deck hands to accomplish them, reducing the size of the ships crew and increasing sortie rate
20.
Landing
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Landing is the last part of a flight, where a flying animal, aircraft, or spacecraft returns to the ground. When the flying object returns to water, the process is called alighting, although it is commonly called landing, a normal aircraft flight would include several parts of flight including taxi, takeoff, climb, cruise, descent and landing. Aircraft usually land at an airport on a runway or helicopter landing pad, generally constructed of asphalt concrete, concrete. Aircraft equipped with pontoons or with a boat hull-shaped fuselage are able to land on water, aircraft also sometimes use skis to land on snow or ice. To land, the airspeed and the rate of descent are reduced such that the object descends at a low rate to allow for a gentle touch down. Landing is accomplished by slowing down and descending to the runway and this speed reduction is accomplished by reducing thrust and/or inducing a greater amount of drag using flaps, landing gear or speed brakes. When a fixed-wing aircraft approaches the ground, the pilot will move the column back to execute a flare or round-out. This increases the angle of attack, the stall warning is often heard just before landing, indicating that this speed and altitude have been reached. The result is very light touch down, the airspeed and attitude of the plane are adjusted for landing. The airspeed is kept well above stall speed and at a constant rate of descent, a flare is performed just before landing, and the descent rate is significantly reduced, causing a light touch down. Upon touchdown, spoilers are deployed to reduce the lift and transfer the aircrafts weight to its wheels. Reverse thrust is used by jet aircraft to help slow down just after touch-down. Some propeller-driven airplanes also have this feature, where the blades of the propeller are re-angled to push air forward instead of using the beta range. Factors such as crosswind where the pilot will use a crab landing or a slip landing will cause pilots to land slightly faster, required Navigation Performance is being used more and more. Rather than using radio beacons, the airplane uses GPS-navigation for landing using this technique and this translates into a much more fluid ascend, which results in decreased noise, and decreased fuel consumption. The term landing is also applied to people or objects descending to the using a parachute. Some consider these objects to be in a controlled descent instead of actually flying, most parachutes work by capturing air, inducing enough drag that the falling object hits the ground at a relatively slow speed. There are many examples of parachutes in nature, including the seeds of a dandelion, on the other hand, modern ram-air parachutes are essentially inflatable wings that operate in a gliding flight mode
21.
Arresting gear
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An Arresting gear, or arrestor gear, is a mechanical system used to rapidly decelerate an aircraft as it lands. Arresting gear on aircraft carriers is a component of naval aviation. Similar systems are found at land-based airfields for expeditionary or emergency use. Typical systems consist of steel wire ropes laid across the aircraft landing area. During a normal arrestment, the tailhook engages the wire and the kinetic energy is transferred to hydraulic damping systems attached below the carrier deck. There are other related systems which use nets to catch aircraft wings or landing gear and these barricade and barrier systems are only used for emergency arrestments for aircraft without operable tailhooks. Arresting cable systems were invented by Hugh Robinson and were utilized by Eugene Ely on his first landing on a ship - the armored cruiser USS Pennsylvania and these early systems had cables run through pulleys and attached to dead weights, such as sandbags. More modern arresting cables were tested on HMS Courageous in June 1931, the system is designed to absorb theoretical maximum energy of 47,500,000 foot-pounds at maximum cable run-out. If the aircraft failed to catch a wire, its landing gear would be caught by a 3–4 foot high net known as the barrier. If the aircraft caught a wire upon touchdown, the barrier could be lowered to allow aircraft to taxi over it. The final safety net was the barricade, a large,15 foot high net that prevented landing aircraft from crashing into aircraft parked on the bow. Barriers are no longer in use, although ground based arresting gear are sometimes called barriers, barricades are still in use aboard carriers, but they are only rigged and used in emergencies. A normal arrestment is accomplished when the hook of an incoming aircraft engages one of the deck pendants. The arresting engine brings about a smooth, controlled stop of the landing aircraft, at the completion of the arrestment, the aircraft arresting hook is disengaged from the deck pendant, which is then retracted to its normal position. Modern carriers typically have three or four arresting cables laid across the landing area. All U. S. carriers in the Nimitz-class, along with Enterprise, have four wires, with the exception of the USS Ronald Reagan and USS George H. W. Bush, the Gerald R. Ford-class carriers will also have three. Pilots aim for the second or third wire to reduce the risk of landing short, aircraft coming in to land on a carrier are at approximately 85% of full throttle. At touchdown, the advances the throttles to full power
22.
Langley Aerodrome
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The Langley Aerodrome was a pioneering but unsuccessful manned, powered flying machine designed at the close of the 19th century by Smithsonian Institution Secretary Samuel Langley. The U. S. Army paid $50,000 for the project in 1898 after Langleys successful flights with small-scale unmanned models two years earlier, the term is derived from Greek words meaning air runner. In November model number six flew almost 1 mile, both aircraft were launched by catapult from a houseboat in the Potomac River near Quantico, Virginia, south of Washington, D. C. S. Navy expression of interest in aviation, the full-scale Aerodrome, financed by the United States War Department and carrying Langleys chief assistant Charles M. Manly, was launched the same way on October 7 and December 8,1903. On both attempts the Aerodrome failed to fly and crashed into the Potomac River seconds after launch, Manly was pulled unhurt from the water each time. Nine days after the December 8 failure, the Wright Brothers flew into history with their four successful flights near Kitty Hawk, the Aerodromes internal combustion engine generated 53 horsepower, about four times that of the Wright brothers gasoline engine of 1903. However, Langley had not properly appreciated the problems of calculating stress on an airframe or controlling an aircraft, Langley made no further tests, and his experiments became the object of scorn in newspapers and the U. S. Congress. Based on these flights, the Smithsonian displayed the Aerodrome in its museum as the first heavier-than-air manned, powered aircraft capable of flight and this action triggered a feud with Orville Wright, who accused the Smithsonian of misrepresenting flying machine history. Orville backed up his protest by refusing to donate the original 1903 Kitty Hawk Flyer to the Smithsonian, the dispute finally ended in 1942 when the Smithsonian published details of the Curtiss modifications to the Aerodrome and recanted its claims for the aircraft. Brewer also questioned the decision to allow someone who had found guilty of patent infringement was chosen to prepare the historic aircraft for tests. Curtiss flew the modified Aerodrome from Keuka Lake, New York, photos of a bit of daylight beneath the pontoons taken at an additional test conducted closer to shore a few days later were published by the media. Two of Langleys scale model Aerodromes survive to this day,5, the first Langley heavier-than-air craft to fly, is on display at the Smithsonians National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D. C. Aerodrome No.6 is located at Wesley W. Posvar Hall, University of Pittsburgh, fabric on the wings and tail is the only new material, although the tail and several wing ribs were rebuilt using vintage wood from the same time period provided by the Smithsonian. Langley had been a professor at the university before he ascended to the Smithsonians top job. The man-carrying Aerodrome survived after being rebuilt and tested by Curtiss and was converted back to Langleys original 1903 configuration by Smithsonian staff and it occupied a place of honor in the Smithsonian museum until 1948 when the Institution welcomed home the original 1903 Wright Flyer from the UK. Afterward, the Aerodrome resided out of view of the public for years at the Paul Garber Facility in Suitland, Maryland. To Conquer The Air, The Wright Brothers and the Great Race for Flight, free Press division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.2003 Contemporary reporting in Flight magazine on the Aerodrome
23.
Aviation pioneers
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Science, Contributions to aerodynamic theory, aviation principles, discoveries advancing aircraft development, etc. A dagger following the name indicates they died in or as a result of an aircraft accident. When available, the aircraft type/model and the place of the accident are included in the text, the table is organized by pioneer name in alphabetical order. Columns for Name, Date of birth/Date of death, Country, if two pioneers are paired together, sorting by DOB or Country uses the information for the first of the pair. The Achievement column will sort according to the date of the pioneer’s earliest significant contribution to aviation, History of aviation Timeline of women in aviation Brewer, Griffith, Alexander, Patrick Y. Aeronautics, An Abridgment of Aeronautical Specifications filed at the Patent Office, red Lion Court, Fleet Street, Taylor and Francis. Casey, Louis S. Curtiss, The Hammondsport Era, 1907-1915, the Bishops Boys, A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright. New York, W. W. Norton & Company, wings – A History of Aviation from Kites to the Space Age. The Aeroplane – An Historical Survey of its Origins and Development, Aviation – An Historical Survey of its Origins to the end of the Second World War. Gossamer Odyssey, The Triumph of Human-Powered Flight, headland, Robert K. Chronological List of Antarctic Expeditions and Related Historical Events. Steam in the Air, The Application of Steam Power in Aviation During the 19th Century, longyard, William H. Who’s Who in Aviation,500 Biographies History. Major, R. Storer, J. D. Thompson, guide to the Aircraft Collection, Museum of Flight, East Fortune Airfield. East Lothian, Scotland, National Museums of Scotland, mason, Francis K. Windrow, Martin C. Aviation in Canada, The Pioneer Decades, Vol.1, the Lives of Celebrated Architects, Ancient and Modern. Molson, Ken M. Taylor, Harold A, wragg, David W. Flight Before Flying. New York, D. Appleton and Company
24.
Smithsonian Institution
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The Smithsonian Institution, established in 1846 for the increase and diffusion of knowledge, is a group of museums and research centers administered by the Government of the United States. Originally organized as the United States National Museum, that ceased to exist as an administrative entity in 1967. Additional facilities are located in Arizona, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York City, Texas, Virginia, more than 200 institutions and museums in 45 states, Puerto Rico, and Panama are Smithsonian Affiliates. The Institutions thirty million annual visitors are admitted without charge and its annual budget is around $1.2 billion with 2/3 coming from annual federal appropriations. Other funding comes from the Institutions endowment, private and corporate contributions, membership dues, and earned retail, concession, Institution publications include Smithsonian and Air & Space magazines. The British scientist James Smithson left most of his wealth to his nephew Henry James Hungerford, Congress officially accepted the legacy bequeathed to the nation, and pledged the faith of the United States to the charitable trust on July 1,1836. The American diplomat Richard Rush was dispatched to England by President Andrew Jackson to collect the bequest, Rush returned in August 1838 with 105 sacks containing 104,960 gold sovereigns. Once the money was in hand, eight years of Congressional haggling ensued over how to interpret Smithsons rather vague mandate for the increase, unfortunately, the money was invested by the US Treasury in bonds issued by the state of Arkansas which soon defaulted. The United States Exploring Expedition by the U. S. Navy circumnavigated the globe between 1838 and 1842, in 1846, the regents developed a plan for weather observation, in 1847, money was appropriated for meteorological research. The Institution became a magnet for young scientists from 1857 to 1866, the Smithsonian played a critical role as the U. S. partner institution in early bilateral scientific exchanges with the Academy of Sciences of Cuba. The Smithsonian Institution Building began construction in 1849, designed by architect James Renwick Jr. its interiors were completed by general contract Gilbert Cameron and the building opened in 1855. The Smithsonians first expansion came with construction of the Arts and Industries Building in 1881, Congress had promised to build a new structure for the museum if the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition generated enough income. It did, and the building was designed by architects Adolf Cluss and Paul Schulze, meigs of the United States Army Corps of Engineers. The National Zoological Park opened in 1889 to accommodate the Smithsonians Department of Living Animals and this structure was designed by the D. C. architectural firm of Hornblower & Marshall. More than 40 years would pass before the museum, the Museum of History. It was designed by the firm of McKim, Mead & White. That same year, the Smithsonian signed an agreement to take over the Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration, the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum opened in the Old Patent Office Building on October 7,1968. The first new building to open since the National Museum of Natural History was the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
25.
Samuel Pierpont Langley
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Samuel Pierpont Langley was an American astronomer, physicist, inventor of the bolometer and pioneer of aviation. He was born in Roxbury, Boston on 22 August 1834, Langley was the founder of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. In 1888 Langley was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society, by then, the department was in disarray – equipment was broken, there was no library and the building needed repairs. Through the friendship and aid of William Thaw, a Pittsburgh industrial leader, Langley was able to improve the observatory equipment, one of the new instruments was a small transit telescope used to observe the position of the stars as they cross the celestial meridian. He raised money for the department in large part by distributing standard time to cities, up until then, correct time had only occasionally been sent from American observatories for public use. Clocks were manually wound in those days and time tended to be imprecise, exact time had not been especially necessary. It was enough to know that at noon the sun was directly above the head, all that until railroad tracks were installed. As railroads became operational, that unpredictability of time became dangerous, trains ran by a published schedule, but the scheduling was chaotic. If the watches of an engineer and a switch operator differed by even a minute or two, it could mean disaster, two trains could be on the same track at the same time and crash. Using astronomical observations obtained from the new telescope, Langley devised a time standard – including time zones – that became known as the Allegheny Time System. Initially he broadcast time signals to Allegheny city business and the Pennsylvania Railroad, eventually, twice a day, the Allegheny time signals broadcast the correct time via 4713 miles of telegraph lines to all railroads in the US and Canada. Langley used the money from the railroads to finance the observatory, from about 1868, revenues from the Allegheny Time continued to fund the observatory until the US Naval Observatory provided the signals for free in 1883. Once funding was secure, Langley devoted his time at the Observatory initially in researching the sun and he used his draftsman skills to produce hundreds of drawings of solar phenomena, many of which were the first the world had seen. His 1873 remarkably detailed illustration of a sun spot, observed while using the observatorys 13-inch Fitz-Clark refractor became a classic and it is featured on page 21 of his book, The New Astronomy, but was also widely reprinted – in the Americas as well as throughout Europe. In 1886, Langley received the inaugural Henry Draper Medal from the National Academy of Sciences for his contributions to solar physics, in 1898, Langley received the Prix Jules Janssen, the highest award of the Société astronomique de France. Langley attempted to make a working piloted heavier-than-air aircraft and his models flew, but his two attempts at piloted flight were not successful. Langley began experimenting with rubber-band powered models and gliders in 1887 and he built a rotating arm and made larger flying models powered by miniature steam engines. It flew on trial over two hundred yards, and drowned itself in the waters of the Potomac, which was cause of great mirth, Langley took it coolly enough and said to me that, though he would never live till then, I should see the aeroplane established
26.
Wright brothers
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They made the first controlled, sustained flight of a powered, heavier-than-air aircraft on December 17,1903, four miles south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. In 1904–05 the brothers developed their flying machine into the first practical fixed-wing aircraft, although not the first to build and fly experimental aircraft, the Wright brothers were the first to invent aircraft controls that made fixed-wing powered flight possible. The brothers fundamental breakthrough was their invention of three-axis control, which enabled the pilot to steer the aircraft effectively and this method became and remains standard on fixed-wing aircraft of all kinds. From the beginning of their work, the Wright brothers focused on developing a reliable method of pilot control as the key to solving the flying problem. This approach differed significantly from other experimenters of the time who put emphasis on developing powerful engines. Using a small wind tunnel, the Wrights also collected more accurate data than any before, enabling them to design and build wings. Their first U. S. patent,821,393, did not claim invention of a machine, but rather. They gained the skills essential for their success by working for years in their shop with printing presses, bicycles, motors. Their work with bicycles in particular influenced their belief that a vehicle like a flying machine could be controlled and balanced with practice. From 1900 until their first powered flights in late 1903, they conducted extensive tests that also developed their skills as pilots. Their bicycle shop employee Charlie Taylor became an important part of the team, the Wright brothers status as inventors of the airplane has been subject to counter-claims by various parties. Much controversy persists over the competing claims of early aviators. The Wright brothers were two of seven born to Milton Wright, of English and Dutch ancestry, and Susan Catherine Koerner, of German. Wilbur was born near Millville, Indiana, in 1867, Orville in Dayton, Ohio, the other Wright siblings were Reuchlin, Lorin, Katharine, and twins Otis and Ida. In elementary school, Orville was given to mischief and was once expelled, the direct paternal ancestry goes back to a Samuel Wright who sailed to America and settled in Massachusetts in 1636. In 1878 their father, who traveled often as a bishop in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, the device was based on an invention of French aeronautical pioneer Alphonse Pénaud. Made of paper, bamboo and cork with a band to twirl its rotor. Wilbur and Orville played with it until it broke, and then built their own, in later years, they pointed to their experience with the toy as the spark of their interest in flying
27.
Theodore G. Ellyson
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Theodore Gordon Ellyson, USN, nicknamed Spuds, was the first United States Navy officer designated as an aviator. Ellyson served in the development of aviation in the years before. He also spent several years before the war as part of the Navys new submarine service, a recipient of the Navy Cross for his antisubmarine service in World War I, Ellyson died in 1928 when his aircraft crashed over the Chesapeake Bay. Born in Richmond, Virginia, Ellyson entered the United States Naval Academy in 1901 and he commanded her briefly after her commissioning on 2 December 1910. In December 1910, Ellyson was ordered to North Island, San Diego, while at an Aero Club show on 28 January 1911 near the flight school, Ellyson took off in a Curtiss “grass cutter” plane to become the first Naval aviator. With a blocked throttle, this plane was not supposed to fly. He slewed off left, cracking up the plane somewhat by making a wing-first landing, however, Ellyson was not injured and from then on he was considered to have made his first flight on this date. From the time Ellyson began instruction in aviation until 29 April 1913, he devoted all of his time to active flying, in 1917, he had duty at the Naval Academy and with the midshipmen on cruise on USS Wyoming and USS Kansas. Ellyson was awarded the Navy Cross for distinguished service in World War I for his development of tactics for the submarine chaser squadron. Following the Armistice in 1918, he remained in the European Area, during the next five months, he commanded the USS Little and USS Brooks. On 10 January 1921, he was ordered to Hampton Roads, Virginia, to serve for eight months as executive officer of the Naval Air Station, Naval Operating Base. The Bureau of Aeronautics was established in the Navy Department on 1 September 1921 and he remained in that assignment until December 1922, when he became the aviation member of the U. S. Naval Mission to Brazil, cooperating in the reorganization of the Brazilian Navy. He returned to the Bureau of Aeronautics in May 1925, on 20 July 1925, he assumed command of Torpedo Squadron 1 and from March to June 1926 was executive officer of USS Wright, a seaplane tender. On 23 June 1926, he was ordered to duty in connection with the out of USS Lexington, the Navys second aircraft carrier. His body washed ashore and was recovered in April 1928 and he was buried in the Naval Academy Cemetery, in Annapolis. In 1941, the destroyer USS Ellyson was named in his honor, the vessel was launched on 25 July 1941 by the Federal Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company in Kearny, New Jersey, and sponsored by the commanders daughter, Miss Gordon Ellyson. The ship was commissioned on 28 November 1941 with Lieutenant Commander J. B. Rooney in command, in 1961, Ellyson was designated the recipient of the Gray Eagle Award for the period 1911 to 1928, when he was the senior active Naval Aviator. In 1964, Ellyson was enshrined in the National Aviation Hall of Fame in Dayton and this article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships
28.
Annapolis, Maryland
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Annapolis is the capital of the U. S. state of Maryland, as well as the county seat of Anne Arundel County. Its population was measured at 38,394 by the 2010 census, the city served as the seat of the Continental Congress in 1783–84 and was the site of the 1786 Annapolis Convention and the Annapolis Peace Conference, held in 2007. Annapolis is the home of St. Johns College as well as the United States Naval Academy, a settlement in the Province of Maryland named Providence was founded on the north shore of the Severn River in 1649 by Puritan exiles from Virginia led by Governor William Stone. The settlers later moved to a harbor on the south shore. The settlement on the shore was initially named Town at Proctors, then Town at the Severn. In 1654, after the Third English Civil War, Parliamentary forces assumed control of Maryland, per orders from Charles Calvert, fifth Lord Baltimore, Stone returned the following spring at the head of a Cavalier force. On March 25,1655, in what is known as the Battle of the Severn, Stone was defeated, taken prisoner, Fendall governed Maryland during the latter half of the Commonwealth. In 1660, he was replaced by Phillip Calvert as fifth/sixth Governor of Maryland), Annapolis was incorporated as a city in 1708. Water trades such as oyster-packing, boatbuilding and sailmaking became the chief industries. Annapolis is home to a number of recreational boats that have largely replaced the seafood industry in the city. Dr. Alexander Hamilton was a Scottish-born doctor and writer who lived and worked in Annapolis, Annapolis became the temporary capital of the United States after the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783. For the 1783 Congress, the Governor of Maryland commissioned John Shaw, the flag is slightly different from other designs of the time. The blue field extends over the height of the hoist. Shaw created two versions of the flag, one started with a red stripe and another that started with a white one. In 1786, delegates from all states of the Union were invited to meet in Annapolis to consider measures for the regulation of commerce. Delegates from only five states—New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, New Jersey, the Philadelphia convention drafted and approved the Constitution of the United States, which is still in force. During this period, a prisoner of war camp, Camp Parole, was set up in Annapolis. As the war continued, the camp expanded to a location just west of the city
29.
Henry C. Mustin
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He was designated Navy Air Pilot No.3 and later Naval Aviator No.11. Two U. S. Navy destroyers have borne the name Mustin in honor of Captain Mustin and his descendants, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 6 February 1874, Mustin graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1896. He spent the two years at sea, as required by law, before he was commissioned an ensign in 1898, from then, until he reported to duty in aviation 15 years later, he distinguished himself as a remarkably capable officer in the surface navy. After receiving his commission, Mustin served during the next 18 months on board six different ships, from October 1899 to March 1900, he served as commanding officer of USS Samar, a gunboat on the Asiatic Station. While commanding Samar, during the capture of Vigan in the Philippine Islands, Mustin won a commendation for towing the boats of the battleship USS Oregon to shore and aiding in covering the landing. After a night of carousing in May 1900, Mustin was court-martialed for leaving his station and sleeping on watch, Mustin was also interested in the technical aspects of ordnance and helped develop a telescopic sight that would aid in increasing the accuracy and range of naval gun fire. He made his first flight while on duty at the Philadelphia Navy Yard, in January 1911, he aided Holden C. Richardson in an experiment with a glider, which Richardson designed and built. Mustin soloed on 13 March 1913, on 31 December 1913, Mustin reported for duty as executive officer of USS Mississippi, a battleship being sent to Pensacola Bay for training purposes. On 6 January 1913, under a new ranking system for officers, a detachment of nine officers and about two dozen enlisted men arrived at Pensacola on 20 January and began to establish the new school. Mustin and his wife and two sons, Lloyd and Henry, moved into Quarters A on the station, following the Tampico Affair on 9 April 1914, the United States sent a squadron of warships to Veracruz, Mexico. They arrived at Veracruz on the evening of 24 April 1914, the United States occupation of Veracruz marked both the first operational use of naval aircraft and the first time that any U. S. aviator of any service was the target of ground fire. Mississippi began her voyage back to Pensacola on 12 June 1914 to make repairs to the aircraft which had seen continued use without means of maintenance, in July 1914, Mustin took Mississippi to Norfolk, Virginia, to be sold to Greece. Mustin was named commandant of the Naval Aeronautic Station in April 1915, a new station ship, the armored cruiser USS North Carolina, arrived in Pensacola on 9 September 1915. He lobbied to halt funding of projects and focus development on high-speed fighter aircraft. He and fellow naval aviator Kenneth Whiting worked together on seaplane designs, rockwell – developments that greatly dampened plans for the Aeronautic Station. He was detached from Pensacola on 31 January 1917 and, as then customary, while he returned to sea duty, Mustin ultimately was promoted and restored to aviation command. On 15 January 1918, Mustin, then executive officer of the battleship USS North Dakota, saved the life of a sailor who was washed overboard, however, the effort took a heavy toll on his health, from which he never entirely recovered. Mustin began development of a sea sled carrier vessel that year, the armistice with Germany and end of World War I on 11 November 1918 ended Mustins sea sled development, although it would be revived during World War II and praised for its ingenuity
30.
Supermarine Walrus
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The Supermarine Walrus was a British single-engine amphibious biplane reconnaissance aircraft designed by R. J. Mitchell and first flown in 1933. It was operated by the Fleet Air Arm and also served with the Royal Air Force, Royal Australian Air Force, Royal New Zealand Navy and Royal New Zealand Air Force. It was the first British squadron-service aircraft to incorporate in one airframe a fully retractable main undercarriage, completely enclosed crew accommodation and it continued in service throughout the Second World War. Construction was started in 1930 but owing to Supermarines other commitments it was not completed until 1933, the single-step hull was constructed from aluminium alloy, with stainless-steel forgings for the catapult spools and mountings. Metal construction was used because experience had shown that wooden structures deteriorated rapidly under tropical conditions, the wings, which were slightly swept back, had stainless–steel spars and wooden ribs and were covered in fabric. The lower wings were set in the position with a stabilising float mounted under each one. The horizontal tail-surfaces were positioned high on the tail-fin and braced on either side by N struts, the wings could be folded on ship, giving a stowage width of 17 feet 6 inches. This powered a four-bladed wooden propeller in pusher configuration, a supplementary oil cooler was mounted on the starboard side. Fuel was carried in two tanks in the upper wings, the pusher configuration had the advantages of keeping the engine and propeller further out of the way of spray when operating on water and reducing the noise level inside the aircraft. Also, the propeller was safely away from any crew standing on the front deck. The engine was offset by three degrees to starboard, to counter any tendency of the aircraft to yaw due to forces on the rudder caused by the vortex from the propeller. A solid aluminium tailwheel was enclosed within a small water-rudder, which could be coupled to the rudder for taxiing or disengaged for takeoff. Although the aircraft flew with one pilot, there were positions for two. The left-hand position was the one, with the instrument panel. An unusual feature was that the column was not a fixed fitting in the usual way. It became a habit for only one column to be in use, and when control was passed from the pilot to co-pilot or vice versa, behind the cockpit, there was a small cabin with work stations for the navigator and radio operator. Like other flying boats, the Walrus carried marine equipment for use on the water, including an anchor, towing and mooring cables, drogues and a boat-hook. The prototype was first flown by Mutt Summers on 21 June 1933, five days later it made an appearance at the SBAC show at Hendon, such aerobatics were possible because the aircraft had been stressed for catapult launching
31.
HMS Bermuda (52)
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HMS Bermuda was a Crown Colony-class light cruiser of the Royal Navy. She was completed during World War II and served in that conflict and she was named for the British territory of Bermuda, and was the eighth vessel of that name. Bermuda was built by John Brown & Company of Clydebank and launched on 11 September 1941, in the same year, the lead ship of the class, Fiji, was sunk while participating in the evacuation of Crete. Through 1942, Bermuda participated in the North Africa campaign, including Operation Torch, with the cruiser Sheffield, she was detached from Force H to attack a small coastal fort, where both came under attack from Italian torpedo bombers. She covered the landing at Bougie and managed to escape heavy air attacks unscathed, Bermuda then returned to service in the Atlantic to escort ships in the Bay of Biscay, and in June 1943, she transported men and supplies to Spitsbergen. She then participated in operations against German U-boats operating in the Bay of Biscay. After more service in the Arctic, she returned to Glasgow in June 1944 for a refit, the refit removed her X turret, and she was then dispatched to the Pacific as the war in Europe was ending, in May 1945. She arrived in Fremantle on 1 July to take on fuel and stores, before continuing on to Sydney, there she undertook exercises with other Royal Navy ships serving in the Far East, including the battleship Anson. Whilst in Sydney, news reached them of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Bermuda then sailed for the Philippines, arriving on 23 August and she then became part of an operation to recover allied prisoners of war from the previously occupied Japanese territories. On 6 September Bermuda was attacked by Japanese aircraft, apparently unaware of the end of the war, Bermuda fought off the attack and was able to continue on her way. She then transported allied prisoners of war to Shanghai for repatriation, Bermuda remained in the Far East as the flagship of the 5th Cruiser Squadron, until 1947, when she returned to the UK for a refit at Chatham Dockyard. She was then placed in reserve, in 1950 she was restored to active service, and served in the South Atlantic as the flagship of the Commander in Chief, South Atlantic Station until 1953. Vice Admiral Peveril William-Powlett was Commander-in-Chief, South Atlantic from 1952–54 and she then served with the Mediterranean Fleet. In 1953, she and her sister Gambia brought aid to the Greek island of Zakynthos when it was struck by the Ionian earthquake and she returned to service, and spent the next few years in exercises with other NATO navies, or other Royal Navy units. In April 1958, she left Malta to assist in the reinforcement of Cyprus during a period of civil unrest, Bermuda was decommissioned in 1962, after 21 years in service. Two of the bugles later found their way into The Bermuda Regiment, apart from the bell and the bugles, which were collected together by the Bermuda Maritime Museum at the former Bermuda Dockyard, the other items went missing following the ships decommissioning. Ships of the Royal Navy, The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy, British Cruisers of World War Two
32.
USS Langley (CV-1)
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USS Langley was the United States Navys first aircraft carrier, converted in 1920 from the collier USS Jupiter, and also the US Navys first turbo-electric-powered ship. Langley was named after Samuel Pierpont Langley, an American aviation pioneer, following another conversion, to a seaplane tender, Langley fought in World War II. On 27 February 1942, she was attacked by nine twin-engine Japanese bombers of the Japanese 21st and 23rd Naval Air Flotillas, president William H. Taft attended the ceremony when Jupiters keel was laid down on 18 October 1911 at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard in Vallejo, California. She was launched on 14 August 1912 sponsored by Mrs. Thomas F. Ruhm and her sister ships were Cyclops, which disappeared without a trace in World War I, Proteus, and Nereus, which disappeared on the same route as Cyclops in World War II. She remained on the Pacific coast until she departed for Philadelphia on 10 October, en route, the collier steamed through the Panama Canal on Columbus Day, the first vessel to transit it from west to east. Prior to Americas entry into World War I, she cruised the Atlantic, the first voyage transported a naval aviation detachment of 7 officers and 122 men to England. It was the first US aviation detachment to arrive in Europe and was commanded by Lieutenant Kenneth Whiting, who became Langleys first executive officer five years later. Jupiter was back in Norfolk on 23 January 1919 whence she sailed for Brest, upon reaching Norfolk on 17 August, the ship was transferred to the West Coast. Her conversion to a carrier was authorized on 11 July 1919, and she sailed to Hampton Roads, Virginia on 12 December. Jupiter was converted into the first US aircraft carrier at the Navy Yard, Norfolk, Virginia, for the purpose of conducting experiments in the new idea of seaborne aviation. On 11 April 1920, she was renamed Langley in honor of Samuel Pierpont Langley, an American astronomer, physicist, aeronautics pioneer and aircraft engineer and she recommissioned on 20 March 1922 with Commander Kenneth Whiting in command. As the first American aircraft carrier, Langley was the scene of several events in US naval aviation. On 17 October 1922, Lt. Virgil C. Griffin piloted the first plane—a Vought VE-7—launched from her decks, the era of the aircraft carrier was born introducing into the navy what was to become the vanguard of its forces in the future. With Langley underway nine days later, Lieutenant Commander Godfrey de Courcelles Chevalier made the first landing in an Aeromarine 39B, on 18 November, Commander Whiting was the first aviator to be catapulted from a carriers deck. An unusual feature of Langley was provision for a pigeon house on the stern between the 5 in /51 caliber guns. Pigeons had been carried aboard seaplanes for message transport since World War I, the pigeons were trained at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard while Langley was undergoing conversion. By 15 January 1923, Langley had begun flight operations and tests in the Caribbean Sea for carrier landings, in June, she steamed to Washington, D. C. to give a demonstration at a flying exhibition before civil and military dignitaries. She arrived at Norfolk on 13 June, and commenced training along the Atlantic coast, in 1927, Langley was at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base
33.
Cruiser
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A cruiser is a type of warship. The term has been in use for several hundred years, and has had different meanings throughout this period. In the middle of the 19th century, cruiser came to be a classification for the intended for cruising distant waters, commerce raiding. Cruisers came in a variety of sizes, from the medium-sized protected cruiser to large armored cruisers that were nearly as big as a pre-dreadnought battleship. With the advent of the battleship before World War I. The very large battlecruisers of the World War I era that succeeded armored cruisers were now classified, along with dreadnought battleships, in the later 20th century, the obsolescence of the battleship left the cruiser as the largest and most powerful surface combatant after the aircraft carrier. The role of the cruiser varied according to ship and navy, often including air defense, during the Cold War, the Soviet Navys cruisers had heavy anti-ship missile armament designed to sink NATO carrier task forces via saturation attack. The U. S. Adams guided-missile destroyers tasked with the air defense role. Indeed, the newest U. S. Navy destroyers are more heavily-armed than some of the cruisers that they succeeded, currently only three nations operate cruisers, the United States, Russia, and Peru. The term cruiser or cruizer was first commonly used in the 17th century to refer to an independent warship, Cruiser meant the purpose or mission of a ship, rather than a category of vessel. However, the term was used to mean a smaller, faster warship suitable for such a role. The Dutch navy was noted for its cruisers in the 17th century, while the Royal Navy—and later French and Spanish navies—subsequently caught up in terms of their numbers, during the 18th century the frigate became the preeminent type of cruiser. A frigate was a small, fast, long range, lightly armed ship used for scouting, carrying dispatches, the other principal type of cruiser was the sloop, but many other miscellaneous types of ship were used as well. During the 19th century, navies began to use steam power for their fleets, the 1840s saw the construction of experimental steam-powered frigates and sloops. By the middle of the 1850s, the British and U. S. Navies were both building steam frigates with very long hulls and a gun armament, for instance USS Merrimack or Mersey. The 1860s saw the introduction of the ironclad, the first ironclads were frigates, in the sense of having one gun deck, however, they were also clearly the most powerful ships in the navy, and were principally to serve in the line of battle. In spite of their speed, they would have been wasted in a cruising role. The French constructed a number of smaller ironclads for overseas cruising duties, starting with the Belliqueuse and these station ironclads were the beginning of the development of the armored cruisers, a type of ironclad specifically for the traditional cruiser missions of fast, independent raiding and patrol
34.
Battleship
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A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries the battleship was the most powerful type of warship, the word battleship was coined around 1794 and is a contraction of the phrase line-of-battle ship, the dominant wooden warship during the Age of Sail. The term came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ironclad warship. In 1906, the commissioning of HMS Dreadnought heralded a revolution in battleship design, subsequent battleship designs, influenced by HMS Dreadnought, were referred to as dreadnoughts. Battleships were a symbol of naval dominance and national might, the launch of Dreadnought in 1906 commenced a new naval arms race. Jutland was the largest naval battle and the only full-scale clash of battleships in the war, the Naval Treaties of the 1920s and 1930s limited the number of battleships, though technical innovation in battleship design continued. The value of the battleship has been questioned, even during their heyday, there were few of the decisive fleet battles that battleship proponents expected, and used to justify the vast resources spent on building battlefleets. Battleships were retained by the United States Navy into the Cold War for fire support purposes before being stricken from the U. S. Naval Vessel Register in the 2000s. A ship of the line was a large, unarmored wooden sailing ship which mounted a battery of up to 120 smoothbore guns, from 1794, the alternative term line of battle ship was contracted to battle ship or battleship. The sheer number of guns fired broadside meant a sail battleship could wreck any wooden enemy, holing her hull, knocking down masts, wrecking her rigging, and killing her crew. However, the range of the guns was as little as a few hundred yards. The first major change to the ship of the concept was the introduction of steam power as an auxiliary propulsion system. Steam power was introduced to the navy in the first half of the 19th century, initially for small craft. The French Navy introduced steam to the line of battle with the 90-gun Napoléon in 1850—the first true steam battleship, Napoléon was armed as a conventional ship-of-the-line, but her steam engines could give her a speed of 12 knots, regardless of the wind condition. This was a decisive advantage in a naval engagement. The introduction of steam accelerated the growth in size of battleships, the adoption of steam power was only one of a number of technological advances which revolutionized warship design in the 19th century. The ship of the line was overtaken by the ironclad, powered by steam, protected by metal armor, and armed with guns firing high-explosive shells. In the Crimean War, six ships and two frigates of the Russian Black Sea Fleet destroyed seven Turkish frigates and three corvettes with explosive shells at the Battle of Sinop in 1853
35.
World War II
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World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, although related conflicts began earlier. It involved the vast majority of the worlds countries—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing alliances, the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. Marked by mass deaths of civilians, including the Holocaust and the bombing of industrial and population centres. These made World War II the deadliest conflict in human history, from late 1939 to early 1941, in a series of campaigns and treaties, Germany conquered or controlled much of continental Europe, and formed the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan. Under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939, Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned and annexed territories of their European neighbours, Poland, Finland, Romania and the Baltic states. In December 1941, Japan attacked the United States and European colonies in the Pacific Ocean, and quickly conquered much of the Western Pacific. The Axis advance halted in 1942 when Japan lost the critical Battle of Midway, near Hawaii, in 1944, the Western Allies invaded German-occupied France, while the Soviet Union regained all of its territorial losses and invaded Germany and its allies. During 1944 and 1945 the Japanese suffered major reverses in mainland Asia in South Central China and Burma, while the Allies crippled the Japanese Navy, thus ended the war in Asia, cementing the total victory of the Allies. World War II altered the political alignment and social structure of the world, the United Nations was established to foster international co-operation and prevent future conflicts. The victorious great powers—the United States, the Soviet Union, China, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which lasted for the next 46 years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers waned, while the decolonisation of Asia, most countries whose industries had been damaged moved towards economic recovery. Political integration, especially in Europe, emerged as an effort to end pre-war enmities, the start of the war in Europe is generally held to be 1 September 1939, beginning with the German invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany two days later. The dates for the beginning of war in the Pacific include the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War on 7 July 1937, or even the Japanese invasion of Manchuria on 19 September 1931. Others follow the British historian A. J. P. Taylor, who held that the Sino-Japanese War and war in Europe and its colonies occurred simultaneously and this article uses the conventional dating. Other starting dates sometimes used for World War II include the Italian invasion of Abyssinia on 3 October 1935. The British historian Antony Beevor views the beginning of World War II as the Battles of Khalkhin Gol fought between Japan and the forces of Mongolia and the Soviet Union from May to September 1939, the exact date of the wars end is also not universally agreed upon. It was generally accepted at the time that the war ended with the armistice of 14 August 1945, rather than the formal surrender of Japan
36.
Aircraft pilot
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A pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its directional flight controls. Other aircrew members such as attendants, mechanics and ground crew, are not classified as aviators. In recognition of the qualifications and responsibilities, most militaries and many airlines worldwide award aviator badges to their pilots. The first recorded use of the aviator was in 1887, as a variation of aviation, from the Latin avis. The term aviatrix, now archaic, was used for a female aviator. These terms were used more in the days of aviation, when airplanes were extremely rare. For example, a 1905 reference work described the Wright brothers first airplane, The weight, the Aéro-Club de France delivered the first certificate to Louis Blériot in 1908—followed by Glenn Curtiss, Léon Delagrange, and Robert Esnault-Pelterie. The absolute authority given to the pilot in command derives from that of a ships captain, when flying for an airline, pilots are usually referred to as airline pilots, with the pilot in command often referred to as the captain. While the flight decks of U. S. and European airliners do have ex-military pilots, military training and flying, while rigorous, is fundamentally different in many ways from civilian piloting. Pilots licensing in Canada is similar to the United States, the Aeronautics Act of 1985 and Canadian Aviation Regulations provide rules for pilots in Canada. Retirement age is provided by each airline with some set to age 60, in 1930, the Air Commerce Act established pilot licensing requirements for American civil aviation. Commercial airline pilots in the United States have a retirement age of 65. Military pilots fly with the forces of a government or nation-state. Their tasks involve combat and non-combat operations, including direct hostile engagements, military pilots undergo specialized training, often with weapons. Examples of military pilots include fighter pilots, bomber pilots, transport pilots, military pilots also serve as flight crews on aircraft for government personnel, such as Air Force One and Air Force Two in the United States. Military pilots are trained with a different syllabus than civilian pilots and this is due to the different aircraft, flight goals, flight situations and chains of responsibility. Many military pilots do transfer to civilian-pilot qualification after they leave the military, the person controlling a remotely piloted UAV may be referred to as its pilot or operator. Most jurisdictions have restrictions on the use of UAVs which have limited their use in controlled airspace, UAVs have mostly been limited to military
37.
Greenock
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Greenock is a town and administrative centre in the Inverclyde council area in Scotland and a former burgh within the historic county of Renfrewshire, located in the west central Lowlands of Scotland. It forms part of an urban area with Gourock to the west. The 2011 census showed that Greenock had a population of 44,248 and it lies on the south bank of the Clyde at the Tail of the Bank where the River Clyde expands into the Firth of Clyde. The name of the town has had various spellings over time and it was printed in early Acts of Parliament as Grinok, Greenhok, Grinock, Greenhoke, Greinnock, and later as Greinok. Old Presbyterial records used Grenok, a common spelling until it was changed to Greenock around 1700 and it has also been suggested that Grian cnoc or sunny hill could refer to the hill on which the castle and mansion house stood, but this has not found much support. The towns modern indoor shopping centre is called The Oak Mall, the name is also recalled in a local song. Significantly, no green oak appears on the coat of arms which features the three chalices of the Shaw Stewarts, a sailing ship in full sail and two herring above the motto God Speed Greenock. Hugh de Grenock was created a Scottish Baron in 1296, around 1540 the adjoining barony of Finnart was passed to the Schaw family, extending their holdings westward to the boundary of Gourock, and in 1542 Sir John Schaw founded Wester Greenock castle. The coast of Greenock formed a bay with three smaller indentations, the Bay of Quick was known as a safe anchorage as far back as 1164. To its east, a sandy bay ran eastwards from the Old Kirk, the fishing village of Greenock developed along this bay, and around 1635 Sir John Schaw had a jetty built into the bay which became known as Sir Johns Bay. In that year he obtained a Charter raising Greenock to a Burgh of Barony with rights to a weekly market, further east, Saint Laurence Bay curved round past the Crawfurd Barony of Easter Greenock to Garvel Point. When a pier was built making the bay an important harbour, in 1642 it was made into the Burgh of Barony of Crawfurdsdyke, and part of the ill-fated Darien Scheme set out from this pier in 1697. This town was later renamed Cartsdyke, the fishing trade grew prosperous, with barrels of salted herring exported widely, and shipping trade developed. As seagoing ships could not go further up the River Clyde, a separate Barony of Cartsburn was created, the first baron being Thomas Craufurd. The work was completed in 1710, with quays extended out into Sir Johns Bay to enclose the harbour, in 1711 the shipbuilding industry was founded when Scotts leased ground between the harbour and the West Burn to build fishing boats. A whaling business operated for about 40 years, in 1714 Greenock became a custom house port as a branch of Port Glasgow, and for a period this operated from rooms leased in Greenock. Receipts rose rapidly from the 1770s, and in 1778 the custom house moved to new premises at the West Quay of the harbour. By 1791 a new pier was constructed at the East Quay, in 1812 Europes first steamboat service was introduced by PS Comet with frequent sailings between Glasgow, Greenock and Helensburgh, and as trade built up the pier became known as Steamboat Quay
38.
Submarine aircraft carriers
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A submarine aircraft carrier is a submarine equipped with aircraft for observation or attack missions. These submarines saw their most extensive use during World War II, the most famous of them were the Japanese I-400 class submarine and the French submarine Surcouf, although small numbers of similar craft were built for other nations navies as well. Most operational submarine aircraft carriers, with the exception of the I-400 and AM classes, used their aircraft for reconnaissance and this is in contrast to the typical surface aircraft carrier, whose main function is serving as a base for offensive aircraft.29 reconnaissance seaplanes in Zeebrugge. One of the first U-Boats to arrive at the Zeebrugge base was Kapitänleutnant Walther Forstmanns SM U-12, the unarmed FF-29 seaplanes were modified to carry 26 1⁄2-pound bombs. On 25 December 1915, one of the modified aircraft flew across the English Channel and up the River Thames, dropping bombs on the outskirts of London. Although pursued by British fighters, it returned to base safely, on this first bombing mission it was apparent that the aircraft suffered more from a lack of range. On 15 January 1915, U-12 left Zeebrugge with a single bomb-armed FF-29 on its deck, the submarine left the harbor, seemingly dwarfed by the 53 ft 2 in wingspan of the biplane, which stretched almost ⅓ of the 188 ft length of the small coastal patrol submarine. As soon as U-12 passed the safety of the breakwater however, heavy swells threatened to damage the aircraft, the subs forward tanks were flooded and despite the pitching of the boat, the seaplane floated off the deck without much difficulty and took off. Arnauld originally intended to rendezvous with the sub, but decided against it, after gaining altitude, Arnauld left for the British coast which he apparently flew along undetected before returning to Zeebrugge. Although the aircraft had carried out to sea and had safely floated off the submarines deck it was obvious improvements were needed in the procedure. Arnauld and Forstmann proposed further experiments to the German Naval Command, two of the aircraft designs created for that purpose were the biplane Hansa Brandenburg W.20 and low-wing monoplane Luftfahrzeug Gesellschaft L. F. G. The first type was designed in 1917 for use aboard the Cruiser submarines that never went into service and it was capable of launching two Sopwith Schneider floatplanes in 1916. However, just as in the German experiment, the aircraft were carried unprotected on the deck, Surcouf was a French submarine ordered in December 1927, launched 18 October 1929, and commissioned May 1934. At 4,000 tons displacement submerged, Surcouf was the largest submarine in the world at the start of World War II and her short wartime career is laced with controversy and conspiracy theories. Surcouf was designed as a cruiser, intended to seek. The guns were fed from a magazine holding 60 rounds and controlled by a director with a 16 ft 6 in rangefinder, in theory, the observation plane could direct fire out to the guns 15 mi maximum range. Anti-aircraft cannons and machine guns were mounted on the top of the hangar, the Regia Marina ordered the Ettore Fieramosca, a submarine with a waterproof hangar for a small reconnaissance seaplane in the late-1920s. The Japanese applied the concept of the aircraft carrier extensively, starting with the J2 Class I-6
39.
Royal Navy
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The Royal Navy is the United Kingdoms naval warfare force. Although warships were used by the English kings from the medieval period. The modern Royal Navy traces its origins to the early 16th century, from the middle decades of the 17th century and through the 18th century, the Royal Navy vied with the Dutch Navy and later with the French Navy for maritime supremacy. From the mid 18th century it was the worlds most powerful navy until surpassed by the United States Navy during the Second World War. The Royal Navy played a key part in establishing the British Empire as the world power during the 19th. Due to this historical prominence, it is common, even among non-Britons, following World War I, the Royal Navy was significantly reduced in size, although at the onset of the Second World War it was still the worlds largest. By the end of the war, however, the United States Navy had emerged as the worlds largest, during the Cold War, the Royal Navy transformed into a primarily anti-submarine force, hunting for Soviet submarines, mostly active in the GIUK gap. The Royal Navy is part of Her Majestys Naval Service, which includes the Royal Marines. The professional head of the Naval Service is the First Sea Lord, the Defence Council delegates management of the Naval Service to the Admiralty Board, chaired by the Secretary of State for Defence. The strength of the fleet of the Kingdom of England was an important element in the power in the 10th century. English naval power declined as a result of the Norman conquest. Medieval fleets, in England as elsewhere, were almost entirely composed of merchant ships enlisted into service in time of war. Englands naval organisation was haphazard and the mobilisation of fleets when war broke out was slow, early in the war French plans for an invasion of England failed when Edward III of England destroyed the French fleet in the Battle of Sluys in 1340. Major fighting was confined to French soil and Englands naval capabilities sufficed to transport armies and supplies safely to their continental destinations. Such raids halted finally only with the occupation of northern France by Henry V. Henry VII deserves a large share of credit in the establishment of a standing navy and he embarked on a program of building ships larger than heretofore. He also invested in dockyards, and commissioned the oldest surviving dry dock in 1495 at Portsmouth, a standing Navy Royal, with its own secretariat, dockyards and a permanent core of purpose-built warships, emerged during the reign of Henry VIII. Under Elizabeth I England became involved in a war with Spain, the new regimes introduction of Navigation Acts, providing that all merchant shipping to and from England or her colonies should be carried out by English ships, led to war with the Dutch Republic. In the early stages of this First Anglo-Dutch War, the superiority of the large, heavily armed English ships was offset by superior Dutch tactical organisation and the fighting was inconclusive
40.
HMAS Australia (1911)
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HMAS Australia was one of three Indefatigable-class battlecruisers built for the defence of the British Empire. Ordered by the Australian government in 1909, she was launched in 1911, Australia was the only capital ship ever to serve in the RAN. At the start of World War I, Australia was tasked with finding and destroying the German East Asia Squadron, Australia was then assigned to North Sea operations, which consisted primarily of patrols and exercises, until the end of the war. During this time, Australia was involved in attempts at naval aviation. The battlecruiser was not at the Battle of Jutland, as she was undergoing repairs following a collision with sister ship HMS New Zealand, Australia only ever fired in anger twice, at a German merchant vessel in January 1915, and at a suspected submarine contact in December 1917. Post-war budget cuts saw Australias role downgraded to a ship before she was placed in reserve in 1921. The disarmament provisions of the Washington Naval Treaty required the destruction of Australia as part of the British Empires commitment, the Indefatigable class of battlecruisers were based heavily on the preceding Invincible class. The main difference was that the Indefatigables design was enlarged to give the two wing turrets a wider arc of fire. Australia had a length of 590 feet, a beam of 80 feet. She displaced 18,500 long tons at load and 22,130 long tons at deep load, the Parsons direct-drive steam turbines were designed to produce 44,000 shaft horsepower, which would propel the ship at 25 knots. However, during trials in 1913, Australias turbines provided 55,000 shp, Australia carried approximately 3,200 long tons of coal, and an additional 850 long tons of fuel oil, this was sprayed on the coal to increase its burn rate. Australia carried eight BL 12-inch Mark X guns in four BVIII* twin turrets, two turrets were mounted fore and aft on the centreline, identified as A and X respectively. The other two were wing turrets mounted amidships and staggered diagonally, P was forward and to port of the funnel, while Q was situated starboard. Each wing turret had limited ability to fire to the opposite side. Her secondary armament consisted of sixteen BL 4-inch Mark VII guns positioned in the superstructure and she mounted two submerged tubes for 18-inch torpedoes, one on each side aft of X barbette, and 12 torpedoes were carried. Australias A turret was fitted with a 9-foot rangefinder at the rear of the turret roof and it was also equipped to control the entire main armament, in case normal fire control positions were knocked out or rendered incommunicado. Australia received a single QF 3-inch 20 cwt anti-aircraft gun on a high-angle Mark II mount that was added in March 1915 and this had a maximum depression of 10° and a maximum elevation of 90°. It fired a 12. 5-pound shell at a velocity of 2,500 ft/s at a rate of fire of 12–14 rounds per minute
41.
HMS Prince of Wales (53)
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HMS Prince of Wales was a King George V-class battleship of the Royal Navy, built at the Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead, England. Prince of Wales had a battle history, first seeing action in August 1940 while still being outfitted in her drydock. The wreck lies upside down in 223 feet of water, near Kuantan, in the South China Sea. In the aftermath of the First World War, the Washington Naval Treaty was drawn up in 1922 in an effort to stop an arms race developing between Britain, Japan, France, Italy and the United States. This treaty limited the number of each nation was allowed to build. As a result, the Admiralty ordered the construction of a new battleship class, Prince of Wales was originally named King Edward VIII but upon the abdication of Edward VIII the ship was renamed even before she had been laid down. This occurred at Cammell Lairds shipyard in Birkenhead on 1 January 1937 and she was still fitting out when war was declared in September, causing her construction schedule, and that of her sister, King George V, to be accelerated. Nevertheless, the delivery of gun mountings caused delays in her outfitting. During early August 1940, while she was still being outfitted and was in a semi-complete state, one bomb fell between the ship and a wet basin wall, narrowly missing a 100-ton dockside crane, and exploded underwater below the bilge keel. The explosion took place about six feet from the port side in the vicinity of the after group of 5. 25-inch guns. The flooding was severe, due to the fact that final compartment air tests had not yet been made, the water was pumped out through the joint efforts of a local fire company and the shipyard, and Prince of Wales was later dry docked for permanent repairs. This damage and the problem with the delivery of her main guns, Prince of Wales displaced 36,727 long tons as built and 43,786 long tons fully loaded. The ship had a length of 745 feet, a beam of 103 feet. Her designed metacentric height was 6 feet 1 inch at normal load and 8 feet 1 inch at deep load and she was powered by Parsons geared steam turbines, driving four propeller shafts. Steam was provided by eight Admiralty boilers which normally delivered 100,000 shaft horsepower and this gave Prince of Wales a top speed of 28 knots. The ship carried 3,542 long tons of fuel oil and she also carried 180 long tons of diesel oil,256 long tons of reserve feed water and 444 long tons of freshwater. Prince of Wales mounted 10 BL 14-inch Mk VII guns, the 14-inch guns were mounted in one Mark II twin turret forward and two Mark III quadruple turrets, one forward and one aft. The guns could be elevated 40 degrees and depressed 3 degrees, training arcs were, turret A,286 degrees, turret B,270 degrees, turret X,270 degrees
42.
HMS Rodney (29)
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HMS Rodney was one of two Nelson-class battleships built for the Royal Navy in the mid-1920s. The ship was named after Admiral Lord Rodney, as her superstructure was located aft of midships like RN fleet oilers whose names carried the. ol suffix, she was sometimes derisively referred to as Rodnol. Commissioned in 1927, Rodney served extensively in the Mediterranean Sea, Rodney played a major role in the sinking of the German battleship Bismarck in May 1941. During and after Operation Torch and the Normandy landings, Rodney participated in coastal bombardments. In poor condition from extremely heavy use and lack of refits, to accommodate 16-inch main guns in three turrets, all of the turrets were placed forward and the vessels speed was reduced and maximum armour was limited to vital areas. Rodney was laid down on 28 December 1922, the date as her sister ship Nelson. Ship trials began in August 1927 and she was commissioned in November 1927, from commissioning until World War II broke out in September 1939, Rodney spent the entire time with the British Atlantic Fleet or Home Fleet. In 1931, her crew joined the crews of ships taking part in the Invergordon Mutiny. In October 1938 a prototype type 79Y radar system was installed on Rodneys masthead and she was the first battleship in the Royal Navy to be so equipped. In 1940 the type 79Y radar was replaced with type 279 and UP AA rocket projectors were fitted to B and C turrets and these were replaced by 35 single 20 mm Oerlikons over the next three years. On 13 September, she was transferred from Scapa Flow to Rosyth with orders to operate in the English Channel when the German invasion of Britain was expected, in November and December, Rodney was assigned convoy escort duties between Britain and Halifax, Nova Scotia. In January 1941, Rodney joined the hunt for the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, in May 1941, while commanded by Captain Frederick Dalrymple-Hamilton, Rodney was ordered to sail to Canada, along with the ocean liner MV Britannic and four destroyers. Britannic was taking civilians to Canada and would be bringing Canadian troops, galfrey George Gatacre RAN, USN Naval Attaché, Lt. Cmdr. Joseph Wellings and Executive Officer, Cmdr, on 26 May, she joined up with King George V, as Admiral Tovey had realised his mistake and doubled back. Tovey then sent the three remaining destroyers home because they were low on fuel, and had Rodney fall in behind King George V for the battle against Bismarck the next day, during the battle, Rodney also fired twelve 24. Rodney and King George V finally broke off the action, Dorsetshire was then ordered to finish Bismarck off with torpedoes. Rodney and King George V, running short on fuel, were ordered home and were attacked by Luftwaffe bombers, since the repairs took several weeks to complete, Rodneys crew was furloughed to local Civilian Conservation Corps camps. In the interim, some members of the crew struck up lasting relationships with American civilians, in September 1941, Rodney was stationed with Force H in Gibraltar, escorting convoys to Malta
43.
HMNZS Leander
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HMNZS Leander was a light cruiser which served with the Royal New Zealand Navy during World War II. She was the ship of a class of eight ships. Leander was launched at Devonport on 24 September 1931 and she was commissioned into the Royal Navy as HMS Leander on 24 March 1933. Along with Achilles she served in the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy, in 1941 the New Zealand Division became the Royal New Zealand Navy and she was commissioned as HMNZS Leander in September 1941. In World War II, Leander served initially in the Pacific, commander Stephen Roskill was posted as the ships captain in 1941. In action on 27 February 1941, she sank the Italian armed merchantman Ramb I near the Maldives, on 23 March 1941, Leander intercepted and captured the Vichy French merchant Charles L. D. in the Indian Ocean between Mauritius and Madagascar. On 14 April, Leander deployed for support of operations in Persian Gulf and, on 18 April, joined the aircraft carrier Hermes. On 22 April, Leander was released from duties in the Persian Gulf. In June 1941, Leander was transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet and was active against the Vichy French during the Syria-Lebanon Campaign, after serving in the Mediterranean, Leander returned to the Pacific Ocean in 1943. On 13 July 1943, Leander was with Rear Admiral Walden Lee Ainsworths Task Group 36.1 of three cruisers, Leander and the US ships Honolulu and St. Louis. The task group also included ten destroyers, at 01,00 the Allied ships established radar contact with the Japanese cruiser Jintsu, which was accompanied by five destroyers near Kolombangara in the Solomon Islands. In the ensuing Battle of Kolombangara, Jintsu was sunk and all three Allied cruisers were hit by torpedoes and severely damaged, Leander was so badly damaged that she took no further part in the war. She was repaired, first in Auckland and then proceeded to a refit in Boston. She returned to the Royal Navy on 27 August 1945, in 1946 she was involved in the Corfu Channel Incident. The superyacht Leander G, owned by Sir Donald Gosling, is named after HMS Leander, cruisers of the Royal New Zealand Navy Action of 27 February 1941
44.
Fairey Seafox
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The Fairey Seafox was a 1930s British reconnaissance floatplane designed and built by Fairey for the Fleet Air Arm. It was designed to be catapulted from the deck of a light cruiser, of the 66 built, two were finished as landplanes. The Fairey Seafox was built to satisfy Air Ministry Specification S. 11/32, the first of two prototypes appeared in 1936, first flying on 27 May 1936, and the first of the 64 production aircraft were delivered in 1937. The flights were organised as 700 Naval Air Squadron of the Fleet Air Arm, the fuselage was of all-metal monocoque construction, the wings being covered with metal on the leading edge, otherwise fabric. It was powered by a 16-cylinder 395 hp air-cooled Napier Rapier H engine and it cruised at 106 mph, had a range of 440 mi. Although the Seafox handled well, it was criticized for being underpowered, engine cooling was poor, in 1939, a Seafox played a part in the Battle of the River Plate against the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee, by spotting for the naval gunners. This ended with Graf Spees scuttling and destruction. They remained in service until 1943.25 hours Climb to 5,000 ft,15.5 min Armament 1 x 7. 7mm machine gun Aircraft of comparable role, configuration and era Arado Ar 196 Curtiss SOC Seagull Fokker C
45.
HMS Nelson (28)
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HMS Nelson was one of two Nelson-class battleships built for the Royal Navy between the two World Wars. She was named in honour of Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson the victor at the Battle of Trafalgar. The Nelsons were unique in British battleship construction, being the ships to carry a main armament of 16 in guns. These were a result of the limitations of the Washington Naval Treaty, commissioned in 1927, Nelson served extensively in the Atlantic, Mediterranean and Indian oceans during World War II. She was decommissioned soon after the end of the war and scrapped in 1949 and she was nicknamed Nels-ol from the resemblance in her outline to RN oilers, whose names ended in -ol. HMS Nelson was essentially a version of the G3 battlecruiser cancelled under the constraints of the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty. The design was to carry an armament of 16 in guns to match the firepower of the American Colorado. The main battery was mounted in three turrets, all placed forward, speed was reduced and maximum armour was limited to vital areas, the three turrets from forward to aft were A, B and X. The guns received individual nicknames being known as Happy, Grumpy, Sneezy, Dopey, Sleepy, Bashful, Doc, Mickey and Minnie, the secondary armament was in turrets P1 to P3 on the port, S1 to S3 on the starboard. The six 4.7 in anti-aircraft mounts were named HA1 to HA6, the even numbers on the port side. The six pom-pom mounts were numbered from M1 to M7 at the extreme aft—there was no M2 position—the odd numbers 3 &5 to the starboard with 4 &6 to port to be consistent with the HA armament labels. From August 1940 until March 1942, Nelson was equipped with four 20-tube 7 in UP rocket launchers, Nelson was laid down in December 1922 and built at Newcastle by Armstrong-Whitworth. Launched in September 1925, she was commissioned in August 1927 and she cost £7,504,000 to build and made partial use of the material prepared for the cancelled Admiral-class battlecruisers HMS Anson and Howe, planned sister ships of HMS Hood. She was the flagship of the Home Fleet from launch, in 1931 the crews of both Nelson and Rodney took part in the Invergordon Mutiny. On 12 January 1934 she ran aground on Hamiltons Shoal, just outside Portsmouth, Nelson was modified little during the 1930s and was with the Home Fleet when war broke out in September 1939. On 25 and 26 September she performed duty during the salvage. Nelson was first deployed in the North Sea in October against a German formation of cruisers and destroyers, on 30 October she was unsuccessfully attacked by U-56 under the command of captain Wilhelm Zahn near the Orkney Islands and was hit by three torpedoes, none of which exploded. Later she was shown up for pace in the futile pursuit of German battlecruisers
46.
HMS Duke of York (17)
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HMS Duke of York was a King George V-class battleship of the Royal Navy. In mid-December 1941, Duke of York transported Prime Minister Winston Churchill to the United States to meet President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Between March and September 1942 Duke of York was involved with convoy escort duties, in October 1942, Duke of York was involved in the Allied invasion of North Africa, but saw little action as her role only required her to protect the accompanying aircraft carriers. HMS Duke of York stopped the Portuguese vessel Gil Eannes on 1 November 1942, the British had picked up radio traffic indicating naval espionage, possibly compromising the secrecy of the upcoming Operation Torch. The attack sank four merchant ships and badly damaged a further seven, on 26 December 1943 Duke of York was part of a task force which encountered the German battleship Scharnhorst off the North Cape of Norway. After the war, Duke of York remained active until she was laid up in November 1951 and she was eventually scrapped in 1957. In the aftermath of the First World War, the Washington Naval Treaty was drawn up in 1922 in an effort to stop an arms race developing between Britain, Japan, France, Italy and the United States. This treaty limited the number of each nation was allowed to build. As a result, the Admiralty ordered the construction of a new battleship class, Duke of York was the third ship in the King George V class, and was laid down at John Brown & Companys shipyard in Clydebank, Scotland, on 5 May 1937. Ironically, the title of Duke of York was in abeyance at that time, the battleship was launched on 28 February 1940, and was completed on 4 November 1941. After this, the joined the Home Fleet at Scapa Flow. Duke of York displaced 36,727 long tons as built and 42,076 long tons fully loaded, the ship had an overall length of 700 feet, a beam of 103 feet and a draught of 29 feet. Her designed metacentric height was 6 feet 1 inch at normal load and 8 feet 1 inch at deep load and she was powered by Parsons geared steam turbines, driving four propeller shafts. Steam was provided by eight Admiralty 3-drum water-tube boilers which normally delivered 100,000 shaft horsepower and this gave Duke of York a top speed of 28 knots. The ship carried 3,700 long tons of fuel oil and she also carried 183 long tons of diesel oil,256 long tons of reserve feed water and 430 long tons of freshwater. At full speed Duke of York had a range of 3,100 nautical miles at 27 knots. Duke of York mounted 10 BL 14-inch Mk VII guns, which were mounted in one Mark II twin turret forward, the guns could be elevated 40 degrees and depressed 3 degrees, while their training arcs varied. Turret A was able to traverse 286 degrees, while turrets B and Y could both move through 270 degrees, hydraulic drives were used in the training and elevating process, achieving rates of two and eight degrees per second, respectively
47.
HMS Ramillies (07)
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HMS Ramillies was one of five Revenge-class battleships built for the Royal Navy during World War I. She was completed after the Battle of Jutland in 1916 and saw no combat during the war and she served with the Grand Fleet for the duration of the war. The ship was active throughout World War II, with service ranging from convoy escort to shore bombardment to engaging enemy battleships, the Revenge-class ships were designed as slightly smaller, slower, and more heavily protected versions of the preceding Queen Elizabeth-class battleships. As an economy measure they were intended to revert to the practice of using both fuel oil and coal, but First Sea Lord Jacky Fisher rescinded the decision for coal in October 1914. Still under construction, the ships were redesigned to employ oil-fired boilers that increased the power of the engines by 9,000 shaft horsepower over the original specification. Ramillies had an overall of 620 feet 7 inches, a beam of 101 feet 5.5 inches. She had a displacement of 30,400 long tons. She was powered by 2 sets of Parsons steam turbines, each driving two shafts, using steam from eighteen Babcock & Wilcox boilers, the turbines were rated at 40,000 shp and intended to reach a maximum speed of 23 knots. During her sea trials on 1 October 1917, the ship reached a top speed of 21.5 knots from 42,414 shp. She had a range of 7,000 nautical miles at a speed of 10 knots. Her crew numbered 936 officers and enlisted men in 1917 and her metacentric height was 4.5 feet at deep load. The ship also mounted four 3-pounder guns and her anti-aircraft armament consisted of two quick-firing 3-inch 20 cwt Mk I guns. She was fitted with four submerged 21-inch torpedo tubes, two on each broadside, Ramillies was completed with two fire-control directors fitted with 15-foot rangefinders. One was mounted above the tower, protected by an armoured hood. Each turret was fitted with a 15-foot rangefinder. The main armament could be controlled by X turret as well, the secondary armament was primarily controlled by directors mounted on each side of the compass platform on the foremast once they were fitted in June 1918. A torpedo-control director with a 15-foot rangefinder was mounted at the aft end of the superstructure, above this was a strake of armour 6 inches thick that extended between A and X barbettes. Transverse bulkheads 4 to 6 inches thick ran at an angle from the ends of the thickest part of the belt to A and Y barbettes
48.
Armed merchantman
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Armed merchantman is a term that has come to mean a merchant ship equipped with guns, usually for defensive purposes, either by design or after the fact. In the days of sail, piracy and privateers, many merchantmen would be armed, especially those engaging in long distance. In more modern times, auxiliary cruisers were used offensively to disrupt trade chiefly during both World War I and World War II, particularly by Germany, while armed merchantmen are clearly inferior to regular warships, sometimes they have scored successes in combat against them. East Indiamen of various European countries were heavily armed for their journeys to the Far East. In particularly dangerous times, such as when the countries were at war. However, many East Indiamen also travelled on their own, and therefore were heavily armed in order to defend themselves against pirates and they also defended themselves against warships, scoring signal victories at the Battle of Pulo Aura and the Action of 4 August 1800. The British Royal Navy purchased several that it converted to ships of the line, in 1856, privateering lost international sanction under the Declaration of Paris. From 1861–65 European countries built high speed ships to run the Union Blockade during the American Civil War, some of these were armed and served as Confederate States Navy raiders. Russia purchased three ships in 1878 of 6,000 long tons armed with 6-inch guns for use as auxiliary cruisers for a Russian Volunteer Fleet. Germany and the United Kingdom responded to the precedent by asking their shipping companies to design fast steamers with provision for mounting guns in time of war, in 1892 Russia likewise built two more auxiliary cruisers. In both World Wars, both Germany and the United Kingdom used auxiliary cruisers, while the British used armed passenger liners defensively for protecting their shipping, the German approach was to use them offensively to attack enemy shipping. The armed merchant cruisers of the British Royal Navy were employed for protection against enemy warships. They ultimately proved to have limited value and many, particularly ocean liners, were converted into troopships. Documentary evidence quoted by the BBC researched from the stages of the First World War suggests that the express liners had greater speed than most warships. The downside proved to be their high consumption, and that using them in a purely AMC role would have burned through the Admiralty reserve supplies of steam coal in less than three months. The ships were vulnerable to fire, because they lacked warship armour and they used local control of guns, rather than director fire-control systems. By coincidence, Cap Trafalgar was disguised as Carmania, in World War II, HMS Jervis Bay — the sole escort for convoy HX84 in November 1940 — stood off the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer, when the German ship attacked the convoy. Though she was sunk alonside 5 vessels, this enabled the rest of the convoy to escape and her master, Acting Captain Edward Fegen was awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions
49.
CAM ship
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CAM ships were World War II-era British merchant ships used in convoys as an emergency stop-gap until sufficient escort carriers became available. CAM ship is an acronym for catapult aircraft merchant ship, a CAM ship was equipped with a rocket-propelled catapult launching a single Hawker Hurricane, dubbed a Hurricat or Catafighter. CAM ships continued to carry their normal cargoes after conversion, the German Luftwaffe had Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor aircraft with a range of nearly 2,000 nautical miles. After the Fall of France, these aircraft could operate from western France against British merchant ships in the Atlantic, flying from Bordeaux–Mérignac Airport, Fw 200s of I/KG40 could reach the convoy lanes west of Britain while staying outside the range of British land-based fighters. The Royal Navy had no aircraft available to provide close air cover for the convoys. The Fw 200s could shadow convoys, directing U-boat attacks on them, or drop bombs on convoy ships, without opposition and to deadly effect. To counter this threat, the Admiralty developed the fighter catapult ship – a converted freighter, manned by a naval crew, when an enemy bomber was sighted, the fighter would be launched into the air with rockets, and fly up to destroy or drive away the bomber. Being large and slow, the Fw 200 became a rather vulnerable target, after the combat, the fighter pilot would bail out or ditch in the ocean near the convoy, and be picked up if all went well. The Admiralty had already experimented with this system and they ordered 50 rocket-propelled aircraft catapults to be fitted to merchant ships. The planes were Hurricane Mark Is, converted to Sea Hurricane IAs, the pilots for these aircraft were drawn from the Royal Air Force. The RAF formed the Merchant Ship Fighter Unit on 5 May 1941 in RAF Speke by the River Mersey in Liverpool, moulton-Barrett commanded the unit providing training for volunteer pilots, Fighter Direction Officers, and airmen. After training, MSFU crews were posted to Liverpool, Glasgow, each team consisted of one pilot for Atlantic runs, with one fitter, one rigger, one radio-telephone operator, one FDO, and a seaman torpedoman who worked on the catapult as an electrician. MSFU crews signed ships articles as civilian crew members under the authority of the ships master. The ships chief engineer responsible for the catapult, and the first mate acted as Catapult Duty Officer. The single Hurricane fighter was launched only when enemy aircraft were sighted and agreement was reached via hand, the first four or five ships were taken into Royal Navy service as Auxiliary Fighter Catapult Ships, and later conversions were officially named CAMs manned by merchant crews. The first CAM ship, Michael E, was sponsored by the Royal Navy while the RAF MSFUs were working up, after a trial launch off Belfast, Michael E sailed with convoy OB327 on 28 May 1941. She was sunk by U-108 on 2 June, the first RAF trial CAM launch was from Empire Rainbow, at Greenock on the River Clyde on 31 May 1941, the Hurricane landed at Abbotsinch. Six CAM ships joined convoys in June 1941, when a CAM ship arrived at its destination, the pilot usually launched and landed at a nearby airfield to get in as much flight time as possible before his return trip
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