# Why just one Enterprise class aircraft carrier? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 11, 2008, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-just-one-enterprise-class-aircraft-carrier/452623 "2008-06-11T21:37:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2012, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-just-one-enterprise-class-aircraft-carrier/452623/41 "2012-12-10T22:35:01Z")
> [@Cheshire\_Human](#): > > I was only aboard Enterprise as a civilian (with no security clearance of any kind) for 3 days, but it was doing 42 knots while I was aboard, and one of the officers out in the smoking area that I mentioned it to told me that once during the time he was aboard, the display I got that figure from was turned off when it got to 50. It does some unknown to me (and him) speed above 50 knots. My personal guess (and guess is all it is) is 65 knots. I know nothing at all of the capability of the Nimitz class. Considering that the Iowa class BBs, with 212,000 shp, [were fortunate to make 32 kts in deep water](http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-104.htm), and [35 kts during one sea trial with USS New Jersey](http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records-10000/fastest-speed-recorded-for-a-battleship/), I am going to have be very skeptical towards claims that Enterprise could do 45 kts+, even with [280,000 shp or more](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_(CVN-65)). I am aware of the [wetted hull length relationship to theoretical maximum speed](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_speed), (and that it isn’t used to analyze the speed of modern vessels anymore) and that plugging in Iowa’s length of 887 feet and Enterprise’s of 1123, yields speeds of ~40 kts, and ~45 kts respectively. From the first linked article, for the Iowas, the required power went up by the cube of the speed. Being very generous with the Enterprise’s power and alloting 300,000 shp, I get a speed, if that power were applied to the Iowa’s screws, of 39.3 kts. Now, Enterprise had less drag, due to its higher length, than Iowa, but enough for it get to 45 kts+? I’d think you’d need some form of air cushion or planing effect to lower drag sufficiently to do that. Let us all now visualize a 100,000 ton+ carrier as a hovercraft… I can believe 42 kts. Maybe. But I’m quite skeptical about 50 and more. Not saying that you’re lying or mistaken, **Cheshire** ; just that I’m missing something that explains that discrepancy between what you observed, and what reading about the basic math and behavior for other vessels tells me should be happening instead. EDIT: Or, I could have just linked to [this article](http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-028.htm) at Navweaps, discussing CVN top speeds. Apologies if it’s already been mentioned in the thread. ---
**Author:** ![mlees](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba8739/32.png) [@mlees](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mlees)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2012, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-just-one-enterprise-class-aircraft-carrier/452623/42 "2012-12-10T22:50:37Z")
The compressability of water has absolutely got to effect the potential top speed of any ship. (I can’t imagine the bow wave on a 65 knot carrier. Good thing those cranials come with goggles!) ---
**Author:** ![robby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robby/32/11048_2.png) [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 11:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-just-one-enterprise-class-aircraft-carrier/452623/43 "2012-12-12T11:56:01Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > Whether it’s 50% or 75%, why is the washout rate so high? > > When you say “navy nuke program”, do you mean nuclear reactor technician training or something else? > [@OtakuLoki](#): > > In reverse order: the navy nuke program refers to the various power plant technicians and operators that keep the nuclear power plants on carriers and subs operating. > > The washout rate is so high because it’s a pretty demanding program. > > The topics covered include: > > thermodynamics > radiation health physics > corrosion science > nuclear physics > materials science > > and especially engineering applications of all the above. > > And they’re all covered in a six month program that’s going at a pace that’s calculated to be challenging for the candidates they get. At the time that I was in, the program was considered to be one of the most challenging education programs in the US. > > Not everyone who passes the selection criteria is able to keep up with the pace of the course materials. For that matter, not everyone can grok all the topics easily. There were specific topics covered that I found nearly impossible to get through my head, while others came easily to me. It’s not unusual for a specific candidate to find a single subject to be their personal wall. > > The military aspect is another factor: some people just don’t thrive in military schools. I happen to believe that military training is some of the most effective training and education I’ve encountered, but I’ll be the first to admit it’s not for everyone. > > Motivation matters. There are a lot of people who have the innate ability to master the intellectual concepts involved, provided they put in the effort to achieve that. There are also some people who just can’t maintain that effort. One of the many non-academic things I had my nose rubbed in while going through the nuke training program was that perseverance and determination matters a hell of a lot more than simple native ability. Someone who didn’t find the concepts covered easy but worked 40 hours, or more, a week studying would often out perform someone else who found things coming to him easily, but who wasn’t putting in the effort to master the material. Traditionally, nuke field candidates include a lot of people who were the bright slackers in HS or even college. It wasn’t unusual to find people in the enlisted nuke program who had enough credit hours to qualify for an associate’s degree. > > In sum you’ll have some candidates that everyone expects will make it all the way through the program with relatively little serious difficulty. Then you’ll have some candidates who fall into less certain categories. Not that they’ll be bad, or even mediocre, operators once they finish training - just that trying to train them is a calculated risk. > > Finally, the so-called nuke waste, those candidates that don’t finish the program, are often considered very high quality entrants into related fields throughout the fleet. There isn’t any stigma associated with washing out of the nuke program - it’s recognized that it happens, and provided it wasn’t because of disciplinary problems, those nuke waste are often thrown into the deep end of their duties when they get to the fleet. (Also, a small fraction of the candidates who were counted as having not having completed the nuke training program in my class were scarfed up to go to Annapolis.) What **OtakuLoki** said. I went through the officer side of the Navy nuclear power training program years ago. As I recall, we lost about 10-20% of our class in Navy Nuclear Power School, and a much smaller percentage at prototype (the follow-on hands-on training at an operational prototype reactor plant). At nuclear power school, we had something like 10 courses, and the second failure in a course meant you were gone. Everyone also had to pass the comprehensive final exam. Our loss percentages were likely lower than the enlisted side because of more extensive screening, including a technical interview process in Washington, D.C., followed by a personal interview with the four-star admiral in charge of Naval Reactors (i.e. ADM Rickover’s successor), plus we were all university graduates, of course. That was not to say that the course was easy, by any means. I personally didn’t find the material as difficult as my university education (B.S. in Chemical Engineering), but there was a tremendous amount of memorization required. And like **OtakuLoki** said, everyone seemed to hit a difficult topic or three. For me, it was “Reactor Dynamics and Core Characteristics” (i.e. “RD-Core”). (It’s kind of amazing how I can still remember the course title like it was yesterday.) I ended up passing the course, but got my one and only exam failure on the first exam. I also found the electrical engineering course to be difficult, especially when we got to three-phase power. I didn’t have too much trouble with the other courses. As a chemical engineering major in college, I breezed through “Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow” as well as the chemistry course. I also didn’t have any trouble with the math course, nuclear physics course, health physics course, materials course, or “Aspects of Reactor Plant Operations.” All in all, I found the training to be excellent. In many ways, it was far more practical and useful than my university education. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-just-one-enterprise-class-aircraft-carrier/452623/44 "2012-12-12T12:02:03Z")
Because Picard thought that saucer separation was a nifty toy - that’s for emergencies only asshole! ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-just-one-enterprise-class-aircraft-carrier/452623/45 "2012-12-12T12:14:59Z")
Robby, What kind of questions were you asked during the interview with the admiral? I’m more looking for a sense of what an interview with a full admiral is like than the technical side which I couldn’t understand anyway. During the training, did they sleep deprive you or create stressful during practical tests? What helped you with the amount of memorization required? ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-just-one-enterprise-class-aircraft-carrier/452623/46 "2012-12-12T17:45:53Z")
> [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > I can believe 42 kts. Maybe. But I’m quite skeptical about 50 and more. > > Not saying that you’re lying or mistaken, **Cheshire** ; just that I’m missing something that explains that discrepancy between what you observed, and what reading about the basic math and behavior for other vessels tells me should be happening instead. I was a guest of VA-75 in Feb. '96, and the pilots told me what all the numbers in the display in their ready-room was on my first day aboard. The next day, I was out smoking, looked down, saw the size of the wake we were kicking up, and said “Holy Shit! We’re _really_ hauling ass! Must be doing 40-45kts!” I immediately tossed my cig, and went to the ready-room to look at the ship’s-speed on the data display, and saw 42kts. Nice guesstimate for a landlubber. I mentioned it later to one of the officers out in the smoking area, and he told me the 50kts story. I don’t know him, never met him before that evening, and never saw him again after that. He was an LTCDR, so I presumed him to be reasonably honest and too experienced to be mistaken, but I can’t vouch for him. I just took him at his word. My guess of 65kts was based on the fact that if they’re going to stop telling everyone on the ship who’s not cleared to know the real top speed when the ship hits 50, there must be a tactically significant additional capability, which I guessed to be about 15 extra knots. All that said, you may very well be right, since I can personally only testify to 42kts from my own direct observation. **[amusing story from that cruise. Hijack, so skip if you’re not interested]** If you’re ever a guest on a US Navy ship, don’t _ever_ wear a light blue, short-sleeved, button-down shirt with dark blue jeans (the colors and roughly the style of the enlisted uniform). It doesn’t matter that you have long hair and a beard, the officers will only see what you’re wearing and will plow into you, expecting you to get out of their way. I was going down a passageway, and an officer was coming the other way. He wasn’t slowing down as he got close, as us civilians would do. At the last instant, I figured out why. He saw the color of my clothes, and expected me to get out of _his_ way. I stepped aside into the space between the steel frames at just the last instant, so he didn’t have to slow down, and I was only delayed by the time it took him to get through the frame-space we were in. About 1 second. I watched officer-enlisted interactions after that for a while, and found out that I had _accidentally_ done it just right. Nobody slows down, but the enlisted guy gives way at the last instant, just long enough to let the officer pass, and not a fraction of a second more. **[/hijack]** ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-just-one-enterprise-class-aircraft-carrier/452623/47 "2012-12-12T20:13:52Z")
Too late to edit: Just read your link. Perhaps the LTCDR I talked to was, in fact, repeating the urban legend mentioned in that article. I don’t know, and have no way to find out, 16± years after the fact. As I stated in my previous post, I can only attest to 42kts from personal observation. That is, in fact, how fast the ship was going. They wouldn’t, and couldn’t, derate it (as far as I know). But none of the officers on the officers’ smoking sponson (I didn’t, but could have if I was willing to wait in line, smoke on the enlisted smoking sponson. Hey, if you’re the guest of an officer, you use the officers’ head, etc. You _don’t_ cut the enlisted line. Ever. Even though you’re allowed to do so. That’s how you piss off everyone around you.) at the time seemed to think we were going at a particularly remarkable speed. Take that for what it’s worth. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-just-one-enterprise-class-aircraft-carrier/452623/48 "2012-12-12T20:42:13Z")
> [@mlees](#): > > The compressability of water has absolutely got to effect the potential top speed of any ship. (I can’t imagine the bow wave on a 65 knot carrier. Good thing those cranials come with goggles!) You’d be _amazed_ at what that looks like. Especially since you have to be held by the anckles, and _trust_ the people who are keeping you from falling somewhere in the vicinity of the anchors or be stupid enough to trust your brother, or get cut by the bow. See where that [is](http://usahitman.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/03_uss_enterprise_cvn_65.jpeg)? I was suspended by my feet out the hole on the other side. And my ‘brown-shoe’ brother was arguing with a ‘black-shoe’ deck-ape, and they were _both_ advocating for dropping me!! Gee. Thanks, asshole… ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-just-one-enterprise-class-aircraft-carrier/452623/49 "2012-12-12T21:28:35Z")
> [@Cheshire\_Human](#): > > Too late to edit: > > Just read your link. Perhaps the LTCDR I talked to was, in fact, repeating the urban legend mentioned in that article. I don’t know, and have no way to find out, 16± years after the fact. As I stated in my previous post, I can only attest to 42kts from personal observation. That is, in fact, how fast the ship was going. They wouldn’t, and couldn’t, derate it (as far as I know)… Thanks for the interesting anecdotes. Sea stories are usually fun to read. And you certainly couldn’t get a better view of the bow wave… Being a civilian, I’ve only ever been on a Perry, and that only during a tour. The PO3 or 2 giving the tour just shook his head and glared when I asked him about convergence zones and just how far the ship’s sonar suites could hear. Guess I could have enlisted if I wanted to know bad enough… Thinking much later after my post, I was wondering if what you saw was a measure of the wind speed down the deck? I can easily imagine the carrier going to flank for flight operations, which, per the link on speed I had up earlier, would be ~30 knots, and doing that into a 20 knot head wind. That’d make the wind over the bow ~50 knots, and knowing the wind over the bow would be a quantity that the crew would want to readily know. Also, I don’t know at what wind speed the carrier would cease flight operations, but greater than 50-60 knots over the bow would make things interesting for the deck crew, I’d think. Whether 30 or 40, that’s certainly moving along for a 100,000 ton+ vessel. Spend a few hundred billion dollars, and it’s _amazing_ what you’ll come up with. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2012, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-just-one-enterprise-class-aircraft-carrier/452623/50 "2012-12-13T02:01:22Z")
> [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > Thinking much later after my post, I was wondering if what you saw was a measure of the wind speed down the deck? Nope. Separate number in the display. 42 was ship’s-speed. We were going down-wind at the time, so the wind-speed number was less. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2012, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-just-one-enterprise-class-aircraft-carrier/452623/51 "2012-12-13T02:12:01Z")
Too late to edit, something else in the post I was replying to worth commenting on: > [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > … > but greater than 50-60 knots over the bow would make things interesting for the deck crew, I’d think. I’ve got nice pictures of me and several others leaning back at about a 20 to 30 degree angle into a +50 knot wind over the flight deck. Too bad it was on film, before I got a digital camera, and I don’t know where the pictures are. It was a really cool pic. ---
**Author:** ![Simple\_Linctus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Simple\_Linctus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simple_Linctus)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2012, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-just-one-enterprise-class-aircraft-carrier/452623/52 "2012-12-13T02:16:21Z")
Are you sure it wasn’t 42 mph which is 36.5 knots? ---
**Author:** ![thirdname](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@thirdname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdname)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2012, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-just-one-enterprise-class-aircraft-carrier/452623/53 "2012-12-13T02:57:08Z")
Are you sure it wasn’t 42 km/h? ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2012, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-just-one-enterprise-class-aircraft-carrier/452623/54 "2012-12-13T04:03:21Z")
> [@Simple\_Linctus](#): > > Are you sure it wasn’t 42 mph which is 36.5 knots? > [@thirdname](#): > > Are you sure it wasn’t 42 km/h? It was a data display for _naval aviators_ in an _aviation squadron_ ready-room aboard a _naval ship!_ It was _all_ in knots. Why in _hell_ would it be in anything else? Why would you think it _might be_ in any other units? ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2012, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-just-one-enterprise-class-aircraft-carrier/452623/55 "2012-12-13T13:40:37Z")
> [@Gray\_Ghost](#): > > Spend a few hundred billion dollars, and it’s _amazing_ what you’ll come up with. USS _Enterprise_ cost $451.3 million, [according to Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_%28CVN-65%29). That’s not a few hundred, that’s 0.45, less than one. Sorry to nitpick, but I see a lot of cases of runaway inflation in describing military spending. I recently had to go look up the cost of the F-117 Nighthawk stealth aircraft after a Military Channel show referred to [the one that got shot down](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_F-117A_shoot-down) as a “multi-billion dollar aircraft.” Not even close – [F-117s cost about 42.6 million each,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-117_Nighthawk) if Wikipedia is to be believed. ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2012, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-just-one-enterprise-class-aircraft-carrier/452623/56 "2012-12-13T15:52:28Z")
> [@Sailboat](#): > > USS _Enterprise_ cost $451.3 million, [according to Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_%28CVN-65%29). That’s not a few hundred, that’s 0.45, less than one. > > Sorry to nitpick, but I see a lot of cases of runaway inflation in describing military spending. I recently had to go look up the cost of the F-117 Nighthawk stealth aircraft after a Military Channel show referred to [the one that got shot down](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1999_F-117A_shoot-down) as a “multi-billion dollar aircraft.” Not even close – [F-117s cost about 42.6 million each,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_F-117_Nighthawk) if Wikipedia is to be believed. I was referring to the US Navy as a whole, and the development of naval nuclear power and naval aviation embodied by USS Enterprise, not the cost of one particular unit within that set. Add those development costs so that you can get in a position to build the first CVN, and I don’t think 100s of billions is that out of line. Sorry if I was ambiguous. FWIW, $450 million strikes me as about an order of magnitude off the replacement cost. Granted, those were 1957 dollars, but still. This [article from 2005](http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/costing-the-cvn21-a-did-primer-01624/) on procuring the CVN-21 class seems to agree and then some. Jesus, 13.7 billion for CVN-78?! Although that price dips quite a bit (~7.9-8.1 billion 2008 USD) for each successive unit. Even if you [account for inflation per the CPI](http://www.westegg.com/inflation/) (though thoughts of a “consumer price” seems silly, when talking about a nuclear powered carrier.), I only get a 2011 cost to build USS Enterprise of ~$3.5 billion. Given the defense rag cite, I think the USN and Pentagon as a whole would be thrilled to get an Enterprise for that figure. So, not an order of magnitude greater to do it today, depending on how you parse the inflation and costs figures, but still quite a bit more than it cost to build the Big E back in the late 50s. Edit: I’m pretty sure the CNN crew mistook the F-117 for the B-2, which is a multi-billion dollar a/c. (2 of them, IIRC). Though, if you throw in the R&D costs of the stealth program, then apportion that to each F-117, I can perhaps see a dollar figure in the billion range. ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2012, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-just-one-enterprise-class-aircraft-carrier/452623/57 "2012-12-13T16:20:55Z")
> [@robby](#): > > That was not to say that the course was easy, by any means. I personally didn’t find the material as difficult as my university education (B.S. in Chemical Engineering), but there was a tremendous amount of memorization required. > > And like **OtakuLoki** said, everyone seemed to hit a difficult topic or three. For me, it was “Reactor Dynamics and Core Characteristics” (i.e. “RD-Core”). (It’s kind of amazing how I can still remember the course title like it was yesterday.) I ended up passing the course, but got my one and only exam failure on the first exam. > > I also found the electrical engineering course to be difficult, especially when we got to three-phase power. > > I didn’t have too much trouble with the other courses. As a chemical engineering major in college, I breezed through “Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow” as well as the chemistry course. I also didn’t have any trouble with the math course, nuclear physics course, health physics course, materials course, or “Aspects of Reactor Plant Operations.” > > All in all, I found the training to be excellent. In many ways, it was far more practical and useful than my university education. I think the nuclear power training was more challenging than standard undergraduate university fare. I base this on having gone to college after leaving the Navy and simply breezing through four years of nontrivial coursework with a four point, just doing what the Navy taught us to do. I used to smile when I heard university classmates grumbling about the homework load or the amount of rote memorization. I thank the Navy for teaching me how to study and giving me a good “high water mark” for heavy course load that kept things in perspective. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-just-one-enterprise-class-aircraft-carrier/452623/58 "2012-12-14T03:45:54Z")
Fascinating discussion. See the latest issue of _Naval History_ magazine for some sea stories by USS _Enterprise_ personnel over the years. I hadn’t realized that JFK, LBJ and Hubert Humphrey all visited her early in her service. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-just-one-enterprise-class-aircraft-carrier/452623/59 "2012-12-14T13:57:02Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > This stuff is classified, so nobody who actually knows will answer. Various documentaries over the years have claimed that the Enterprise is faster than Nimitz class ships. That might be the shape of the hull. The Nimitz stern (back of the ship) is flatter than the Big E, and that causes the ship to be slower, but more stable. It is rumored that the Enterprise is so fast that if taken up to very top speed it shudders, so they don’t do that. But even at safe speed it is generally considered faster than a Nimitz. For what it is worth, most ships shudder at their top speeds. The USS Ranger (CV-61) would start shuddering at over 30 knots pretty badly. **Worth noting as this thread is pretty old, The Big “E” just completed her final sea duty. She is headed for the scrap yard now as by the time they remove the 8 reactors there is not enough ship left to be a museum. It was announced one of the Ford Class carriers will be named the Enterprise. She is currently scheduled to launch around 2025 as CVN-80.** So there will thankfully be a third Big “E”. CVN-65 was named for the most successful ship in USN history, [CV-6 the ship that did most to win the Pacific War in WWII](http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDQQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FUSS_Enterprise_(CV-6)&ei=sC_LUMj7C-rQ2QXfpYGYBw&usg=AFQjCNGkpUaqCK0F8qrlC9DB1ZSxnQpscg&bvm=bv.1355325884,d.b2I). ---
**Author:** ![av8rmike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/edb3f5/32.png) [@av8rmike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/av8rmike)\ **Post date:** [December 14, 2012, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-just-one-enterprise-class-aircraft-carrier/452623/60 "2012-12-14T15:42:29Z")
> [@mlees](#): > > The compressability of water has absolutely got to effect the potential top speed of any ship. (I can’t imagine the bow wave on a 65 knot carrier. Good thing those cranials come with goggles!) Not really; the bulk elastic modulus of water is so high that compressibility isn’t taken into account (you _do_ have to worry about it in air at trans- and super-sonic speeds, but that’s another matter). You might be thinking of the wave-making drag, which, along with frictional and spray drag, are limiting factors to the speed of a vessel, but these have nothing to do with compressibility. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-just-one-enterprise-class-aircraft-carrier/452623.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-just-one-enterprise-class-aircraft-carrier/452623.md?page=4)