Steering an Aircraft Carrier 

I worked a block away from the USS Intrepid for 10 years and I always assumed that those portholes were for ventilation because of the hanger deck. Thanks for clarifying that for me

I can confirm that such a double crank does exist for the Wasp class. If a single sailor is cranking it is 64 turns per degree, two sailors doubles the speed, and there is of course a set of these double pumps for each of the two rudders. Training specified they were only used for centering the power-disabled rudder and not for steering.

Hornet is my local museum ship and I have always wanted to see this space since I learned what it was. Thanks to Ryan and staff for the great video

The fwd conning station was a little further aft before the ship was modernized and given a closed bow and angled flightdeck. The bow was originally open and a couple quad 40mm were at the point. Several Essex class in heavy weather has the front corners of the flightdeck bent down from huge waves. Lots of pictures around. Don't know about carriers, but I was a helmsman on several WWII built destroyers and a DLG. The Fletchers had a single rudder. Sumners and newer classes had twin rudders directly in the path of the props. Twin rudders give more control, make it easier to steer a straight course and much easier to steer alongside a tanker. If power is out, turning the rudder by hand is very difficult and slow. Moving 5° takes several minutes. It's better to put the rudder amidship and steer with engines.

In her battle with H.M.S. Java her ship's wheel not her rudder was shot away. After her victory, they took Java's double wheel over. From that point on, she had a double wheel, Java's wheel is now in the U.S.F. Constitution Museum, she now has a reproduction on board.

I was just touring the Yorktown two days ago, in Charleston South Carolina. I was very surprised to find A steering position near the torpedo arming room berthing compartment. Very cool to see you discuss this just days after I saw it. Watching this channel helped me understand why there would be a steering position in such a seemingly random location.

That is the first compartment I restored back in 1999-2000. The wheel you are leaning on belonged to the USS Bennington. Oh, I noticed you didn't turn the latch to close that chart drawer. Just sayin' as not much gets past my eye when walking into restored spaces. I'll turn it closed next week. Just giving you a hard time as anytime a knob or switch is moved I will notice it. Good to meet you...

Hornet! In the mid 90's I was a scrape and paint volunteer in the Hornet. Good to see a part of the old Gal again. Thank you for what you do, Ryan!

Well! I've often wondered about those portholes. Figured they had something to do with mooring, but never suspected an alternate bridge. TNX!!

The hurricane bow is a post war modification. If the Essex Class was built with the auxillary steering position in this location then it was probably much smaller as built.

I served onboard CV-67 USS John F. Kennedy ships company. While in the Portsmouth Va. shipyard a buddy and I were able to check out the forward con. The forward con compartment was about 1/3 the size of an Essex class carrier. I remember it well. Pretty amazed at how big the Essex class forward con is. Good video Ryan!

Glad to see the video. When I was onboard USS Lexington I knew this space existed but was never able to see it.

I suspect more steering positions in single rudder ships has to do with assessed risk. Smaller ships like Salem are more apt to take damage from shells in a number of places and are less significantly armored so you need more redundancy to maintain steering. In the case of a carrier bomb/kamikaze/missiles, can strike anywhere and while they are rather large and have bulkheads they are not armored in the same way. In a battleship a number of the redundant steering positions are tucked away in rather armored places that if they are inoperable, your probably steering the ship to the bottom anyway.

Another great presentation... Thank you Ron!

It was nice having you on board, I just wish I had more of chance to talk to besides "hi, bye" on Sunday morning. Hope you guys get a chance to come back out some time soon.

I used to work on the Hornet while in high school as part of the Safety Division. It was fun riding the central elevator and going through p-ways not open to the public yet. My fav memory was operating the targeting computer and manually traversing the forward starboard 5 inch

For real; cool episode! I never thought about this. I'd like to see all of them!

While on the USS Tulare LKA 112, my sea and anchor station was after Steering, also my underway watch station. There was a large wheel there that operated a manual hydraulic pump to steer the ship. Always two people on watch, a boatswain mate and an engineman. We both had to be able to steer from that position.

I love this comparison between Iowas and other ships. Keep it up!

@Ryan -- SUGGESTION -- publish an owner's manual. Jazz it up like a new car owner's manual. Have some fun with it. Even include sections on maintenance, like how to reline a main battery barrel.

On a frigate, we had the bridge, and the steering equipment room. In the steering equipment room there were several ways to move the rudder, from a duplicate steering wheel all the way down to a ginormous wrench that could be fitted to the rudder post and swung back and forth with a couple of chainfalls.

My grandfather was on U.S.S. Hornet during WWII, I will be visiting that museum, I didnt even know it was still floating.

I love that space on Hornet. Took my dad to see her, he had served on USS Bon Homme Richard in 1961, the Hornet Museum staff treated him like visiting royalty. I highly recommend going to see her.

MY 2 FAVORITE ARE THE Brooklyn Naval Yard & Philadelphia. I did have an opportunity to visit the Philadelphia Naval yard in the early 90s. I was amazed of No Security, I just drove and delivered supplies for the machine shop still operating there. And while they're were unloading the truck, I walked all over the yard. And seen 2 of the Iowas there, NJ and Wisconsin, and 2 carriers. And if course a whole fleet of destroyers and supply ships. The rest if the yard, where the rail cars would come was completely empty-Nada nothing but timbers tossed around, wish I can locate the pics I took

That green tile! I laid my feet of this while on the USS Coral Sea, MarDet during and after our yard period in Bremerton in 1978-79.

Yes, I have always wondered why there were portholes just under the forward edge of the flight deck. I would have never guessed. Now I know.

a friend of mine long ago,,,,was the steersman on an aircraft carrier in WWII,,,he sat waay to the rear i think directly above the 4 rudders in a small room. In front of him was a dial with two hands. One was connected to the bridge and turned there to tell him which way they wanted the rudder to go. The other hand on the same dial told him the current direction the rudders were pointed. Behind him were 4 large diesel engines with steering gear and clutches. Engines just idled most of the time, but when his indicator pointed to a new direction, then he would turn his large steering wheel to the new direction and all 4 engines would rev up and labor as they swung their respective rudder to the new direction. When they all got aligned, the engines went back to idle until he made another correction....a very noisy and boring mission to be for many hours at sea. I dont know how long each shift was but they did have several steersmen at hand so they could switch around

When I was in the navy my GQ location was steering gear. It was one of the best places to be because you could sit down and be comfortable.

I spent many hours steering a Coast Guard cutter from the bridge in the 1970s. However, we did not use a wheel. I sat in a comfortable seat and there was a lever about 10 inches long. I would move it to the right for right rudder and left for left rudder. In front of me was the gyro compass, so I could determine the heading and if the command was "right rudder 10 degrees to bearing 090, it was easily done. What is also interesting was when we were at general quarters drill, my job was to be in aftersteering, locked in to a crowded compartment. On our ship this was located in the stern below decks. The bridge would transfer authority to us (for practice) and there were hydraulics there (hydraulic rams connected directly to the rudder) and hydraulic pumps running. Our job in after steering in an emergency was to be able to steer the ship if the bridge control became inoperative.

Thanks. Keep them coming.

Iwo Jima class amphibious assault ships had similarly located secondary conns, and after steering helms.

Curator, you are such an interesting person, I would love to hear (if it's not a repeat video) the story of how/ why you do what you do!

Cv-12. My home museum ship!

Had the pleasure of seeing Secondary Con on Lexington, I believe they used that space to depict a Japanese ship in a movie.

They had a working hand crank hooked up to a steering gear with no rudder when J went through "A" school that we were required to operate for functional experience. It not only requires 100 turns to move 1° it requires that both sailors match rotation speed.

Landlubber here, impressed with the content and commentary!

Fascinating stuff !!

When I was on the USS John F. Kennedy CV-67 this was my Battle Station. Many stories I could tell you from those memories... From getting in trouble for shooting paper airplanes out the front portholes. Even though they weren't having fight ops at the time. The executive officer (2nd in charge) was in charge of the space. Our Secondary Con Station was about half to ⅓ the size of this. I just had my toolbelt on all the time in case one of our devices wasn't working. I steered the ship once. Nothing like a car or a truck. He showed me the heading and said steer in that direction. There was a severe lack of feeling with the ship and the now would drift left or right up to 6 or 8 degrees while trying to correct and I didn't have a enough time to learn and get the hang of how much drift to understand which angle is when you start to compensate. It was nerve wracking as everyone is watching you and you literally have the helm of the ship and thinking about the whole ship and crew and if they had to steady themselves going about their business. It felt like to me that I could feel like I was tilting the ship but it was probably my imagination. I had to go to GQ the night we crashed into the USS Belknap because they had an inexperienced person on the bridge but I know the Captain wasn't on the bridge. An Aircraft Carrier has the right away on the sea to shoot planes off in the wind (not to mention super common sense is that is a huge super heavy ship cruising around your ship supposedly there with all the other ships in the surrounding area to support the Carrier and the rest of the group. Well, war games or practicing for action has it's share of problems. The Belknap kept saying "wait one" while trying to make a decision. I don't know but I would just steer clear of the Carrier. I believe 6 died on the Belknap and one on the Kennedy... Lots of destruction... Very sad. We searched for crew members and the flames were as high as the superstructure with magnesium sparks and a blueness as the flames of these explosions looked horrifying... We were in the Mediterranean and even the flight deck around the angle was warped and bent but they extended our 6 months an extra month. We weren't happy about that but we just went on with our work.

3:40 if i had to take a guess i would say that because of the armor on the Iowa class battleships they simply decided that the ship was well protected enough that they had a reasonable margin of safety with only 4 positions, where as any other ship can be disabled by much less firepower.

From looking at early photos, that space did not exist before the FRAM (SCB125) that added the Hurricane Bow on the Essex Class carriers. While not all the Essex Class got the Hurricane Bow, all the existing museum Essex Class have that FRAM The space right behind the forward steering are the Aviator JO Bunkrooms, one port and one starboard (right under the cats. We could lay in our bunks and count the catapult shots.

I was on several carriers. The oldest was CVA 60 Saratoga. It and the newer ones did not have steering in the bow. There are portholes but no place to put anything up there. Just frames a foot or so apart. The island has several decks. I never saw any sort of aft steering either as my berthing was back there in CVAN 69.

My son served on the GW and his rack was in the bow right by the emergency steering station. This is where the people that worked the forward catapults bunked.

Great upload

i think Battleship Texes has 5 locations for steering and 4 different types of steering methods that could be done at some of those stations.

Having served on the USS Essex LHD-2, I've been in the forward conning station and the 2 "windows" are to see out of it. I also stood after steering watch which is in the steering gear rooms (each rudder has it's own steering gear room).

In battle, the island and more specifically the bridge are prime targets. They are also pretty easy to hit since they are so exposed. So of course there's a fully functional back up.

On a tiger cruise in the 80s, i got to steer the USS Nimitz what felt like quite a while. i have a 'certificate' with the lat/lon where we were around here somewhere.

Amphibious ships like Dock Landing Ships, and Frigates, and Destroyer Tenders, all have just two steering stations - the bridge (or pilot house on the old LSDs that had open bridges and small pilot houses) and after steering. There were no secondary steering stations other than after steering. Perhaps because none of those ships were intended to take the beatings that battleships and carriers are expected to take. And somehow that reminds me of a recent video where you were discussing how to find the power panels for electrical circuits. There *should* be a metal tag on each cable at each junction box giving the location of the power supply. After 70 years, though, and multiple modernizations, who knows?

There's so much room for activities!

I'm thinking the single rudder is easier to add control's to then dual rudder ships because you would have to add double as much for both rudder's adding weight and taking up space.

Always good.

It's just missing the pool table. Lol😂

the radar repeater is a AN/SPA-25. Go look at WW2 pictures of the Essex class -without the hurricane bow- I think originally this location was not present.

I would think that the single ruder ships steering controls are less complex than ships with 2 Ryder’s, thus you can more easily create multiple locations to steer from.

_USS Kitty Hawk_ had an a space in the same place. I never went in there, as the water tight doors were locked during my 1996-2000 tour, but the space _was_ there. I doubt it was an aux conn position, as the _Kitty Hawk_ was built with provisions for bridle launch, so more likely that small space was for that. There was a passageway that went around it, part of the O3 level passageway. Nimitz class do _not_ have an aux con space there, the space that would be taken up by that compartment would be part of a 200 man berthing, which is usually Air Department.

Wow Ryan’s filming at night, at first I thought the portholes were painted over.

You could run chains up on deck to have sailors manhandle the rudder, but on a carrier I think it would be easier to hook them up to a few aircraft tractors. (At least in the jet age, when aircraft, and hence tractors, got heavier.)

I believe that during GQ the Captain go to the CIC. That's where they can see all the information. The bridge has a better view, but in this day and age that doesn't really help much. I don't know where the XO goes. Also, if there are chains used to operate the tiller in an emergency, how would those chains go to the flight deck. And if they did go there, that would end flight ops. It seems it would be better just going to the main deck where there is a straight shot down the ship from the stern to the bow. They would have to open all the water-tight doors though.

Great video.thank you for steering the video in the right direction.😂😂😊

I always wondered too

USS Coral Sea, CV-43, an "Essex" class carrier had two rudders. Saw them while in dry dock. 1975 to 1977.

With a single rudder the ship can travel in only one direction at a time. With two rudders a ship can travel in two directions at once. That’s why ships with two rudders need fewer steering positions.

i would go with 3 steering stations for a ship one on the bridge , one in the bowels of the ship and one in the engine room , close to the rudders

Was this steering position added in 1955, when they closed off the bow?

I don't think the number of steering positions is determined by the number or rudders, I think it is more a function of how much damage it takes to knock each one out. If you are managing to knock out the backup conns on an Iowa, you have probably basically sank the ship. A more lightly armored vessel, especially an aircraft carrier, is more likely to have it's secondary and tertiary backup steering positions disabled by fire or damage. A destroyer I would expect to have fewer, for similar reasons to the battleship, ie. if you are hitting it hard enough to knock out multiple backups, you are hitting it hard enough to sink the ship.

I wish I would have know Ryan was going to uss hornet guess I need to look at other social media for possible meet and greets

I’ve had the opportunity to visit the USS Missouri on three occasions. Since you talked about the whistle, I’m wondering where it’s located on the ship.

I think there are couple of reasons why NJ has fewer redundant steering positions than Salem or Hornet. Firstly, NJ was much more heavily armoured than a cruiser of a carrier, and therefore it may have been assumed that (despite the design of the Iowas being designed by the Department of Redundancy Department) the chances of an individual steering position being knocked out were lower. Secondly, with a double-rudder ship, it may have been decided that the "Manual" hand-crank steering positions installed on single-rudder ships were either not feasible, or would have to be geared down so extremely that maneuvering with them would be essentially impossible, and therefore they were omitted.

USS Enterprise CVN-65 had four rudders, Nimitz class and all super carriers (I think) had two. I didn’t know Essex class only had one rudder.

I think the inherent redundancy of multiple rudders and their actuators / rooms / equipment in general means that less redundancy is required. These shipbuilders and the USN were extremely meticulous about redundancy and survivability, with infinite studies and data available to support any given choice. My guess is that it comes down to single-point-failures and total failures. The loss of one rudder is not considered a "total failure" - thus, you can instantly ignore the redundancy for such a failure when designing a ship. This does get tricky when you consider a failed rudder stuck hard-over to one direction and you absolutely must steer in the opposite direction (obviously not a huge issue in open waters, but certainly for obstacle avoidance or if you have to traverse to a specific location.)

The LST I was on had two rudders and one secondary steering position. That was after steering back over the rudders. I believe that the Fletcher class destroyers that I did reserve training cruises on also had only after steering as a secondary position. They also had two rudders. As a side note, the German battleship Bismarck had its rudders jammed by British aircraft which led to its destruction and sinking.

Future story, if you haven't already done it. How are all of those charts organized? Latitude and Longitude? Areas of interest, regions, navigators choice?

Before the enclosed hurricane bow was installed during her modernization, was the auxiliary steering an enclosed or open space? During her WW2 configuration, that space was open and 40MM gun emplacements were installed in that location. Can anyone shed some light on this?

I am a volunteer on the midway and have visited SECCOM before, it is wayyyy smaller than what hornet has.

I have wondered how the ships / engine telegraphs work. Saw a short video about an English where it operated with rods and cables.

The urge to turn everything on just to see if it still works would be overwhelming! Lol

I haven't been to Hornet yet. But I saw the same compartment on Intrepid last year!

I was ship's crew for CVA 41 in the late '70s. Dejavu 😂

Could the space have also been used for a forward damage control team? It’s big enough and could hold lots of the crew with equipment.

the push button one gets me, I can just imagine someone looking for a light switch and sending the ship into a turn

Is there anyway to get into the USS JFK CV67? Now that would be a cool video. My dad served on it and I wish they weren't all being destroyed. Thanks for the cv video

I think that because the battleship has more armour protection. They can lower the redundancy, because the wheelhouses are more protected. This is, i think, if you need more then 4 redundancy's. The ship is allready to damaged to function.

Ally Garcia class, fast frigate there’s only two places on the ship you can steer the bridge and aft, staring and that was the last compartment on the ship towards the stern

Makes me want to check out the USS Yorktown and see if it has those portholes.

One steering position is necessary for a warship; one that is manned and working. How much redundancy that is needed to be reasonably likely to achieve that in foreseen circumstances, that I can't even estimate.

What is the numbering scheme for the communication channels? What is the 1MC vs the 21MC?

It feels like they built the crank steering device to haze misbehaving sailors like putting sailors out in the front AA position of a battleship to get soaked by cold wet conditions.

I cannot believe that space is that large. considering the Navy is always looking for someplace to use for storage or berthing I would think that space would be subdivided.

"Chains" My first thought was to wonder if there was a manual intervention for steering. This is the Navy, I would suspect there would be. Chains seem unlikely due to weight, 200 men to carry the chains and 100 to turn the ship... They're also not user friendly for hands and fingers. Ropes seem possible even if only for show "and that's how we steer when the power goes out".

I've never seen anything reported on the number of officers and enlisted on the ship. It comes up in relation to my dad's service on the North Carolina. He was a newbie Ensign on board in Damage Control when the war ended. He said that he had been to every possible part of the ship. He also said that he was "in charge of Damage Control". That hardly seems possible for such an important section. I learned that the complement of a battleship was about 1,800. How were they disbursed, what were the department names, who commanded them by rank, how many officers and enlisted in each department? I recently learned that there are at least 5 O-6 "Captains" aboard an aircraft carrier, responsible for major activities. WHAT did that org chart look like? Was it the same on a battleship? Again, no data available. Thx in advance.

It’s not single rudder vs double. It’s armored vs not armored.

Single rudder for any ship is crazy. Going side on to the swell could doom the ship. Also warships should have some way to jettison a stuck rudder (Remember the Bismark).

Would there have been a large rise and fall that far from the middle of the ship

When I was in the Navy in the 1980's. Got to go down to where the rudders came into the ship. There was what I was told was away to manually steer the ship. Took that with a grain of salt. As it appeared that you had to manually pump a hydraulic system. Not a job I would ever want.

Essex class didn't have enclosed bows during WWII, that's an interesting later addition.

I'm not sure I would fancy the vertical motion when the ship is battling into a storm.

My dad was on the Coral Sea CV-43, He always told a story of tug boats being on strike in the mid 60's. His captain used the aircraft on the ship to act as bow thrusters to dock the ship. I have never seen any proof of this, but I was a sub sailor and I can see how the captain of a ship would use something like this to get his men home after a long deployment. I have seen some things that should not be put in writing.

Who is crewing a secondary con? (and all the other redundancy positions on the ship) Is there a bunch of sailors eternally twiddling their thumbs on the slim chance that they may have to do something one day?

More steering stations could be because a carrier is at higher risk of fire with all the aircrart then jet fuel as well as all the ordinance which unlike BBs is not confined in magazines then to the turrets but rather can be exposed on the flight deck or hanger deck. So more steering stations just in case. Some of those stations may be unusable in a massive fire, Think Franklin, Bunker Hill, Oriskany and Forrestal. The single rudder vs multiple rudders may be a simple matter of hull design. Or even something as petty as some guy who wore 4 stars in the 1940s at BuShips saying he wanted a single rudder.

What happens if there is a different rudder input from two locations at the same time?