After pulling two cruises on the flightdeck of the Connie I've heard some impressive sounds. Some of the most Gawdawful of which is the noise the arresting gear makes when you are below decks next to the machinery spaces that contain the cable squeezers.

But the all time most immpressive sound was when we rammed a 5,000 ton freighter, (The Bangler Joy out of Pakistan) with our 85,000 ton aircraft carrier at 1 AM doing about 30 knots. The whole 4.5 acres of 3.5 inch thick flight deck warbled like kids shaking sheet aluminum to make "thunder" during a school play. It was absolutely the "basest" note I've ever heard in my life.

I was going to make a couple of jokes here but seeing as how folks on the smaller ship died when they passed down our port side and their cranes sheared off a five ton fire control radar, which fell through their main deck into their engineroom, I felt suddenly uncomfortable about it.

We broke their keel amidships as well. In the light of the full moon I could see the ship's forepart bobbing one way while the aft part bobbed in the opposite direction held together only by ruptured hull plating. Those guys were seriously AFU.

BD

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"The beauty of that discussion of averages is that you don't have to be an expert in Apollo or in photography in order to see where this time study "analysis" breaks down. You just have to be, well...not an idiot." -JayUtah