When Empires Strike Back

Yet there is one place on a carrier where the roar and near chaos of a man-
of-war persists: the flight deck during battle. Military jets are unmuffled and often operate on the deck at full throttle, producing a thunder above which no shout can be heard. Pilots and flight deck crew, including the catapult crew -- the "shooters" -- communicate via hand signals. A missed signal ("jet blast reflector up,"
"turn right," "fold wings," "go") can kill, just as miscommunication between crewmembers manning a recoiling cannon could dispatch a Royal Navy seaman in the blink of an eye.

CAPTAIN AND CREW

A man-of-war captain in the late 18th and early 19th centuries had to know all about the actions and interactions of the ocean and the weather -- indeed, everything that could help or hinder the progress of his ship, moment by moment, season by season, anywhere in the world (a British squadron under Lord Nelson shadowed a hostile French fleet in 1805 from the Mediterranean across the Atlantic to the West Indies and back, navigating as usual with a chart, a lead line, sextant, chronometer, compass). Quick, accurate mathematical calculation was critical, Hattendorf says, and "the captain's mind was his computer." Because ships moved at the mercy of the wind, a fickle power source at best, the captain needed a deep understanding of how each one of some three dozen sails, from the flying jib to the mizzen topgallant sail, could affect movement -- and how long it would take the topmen to scramble high into the rigging to reef a sail. Today, a Nimitz-class carrier's power source is remarkably reliable: Two nuclear reactors, whose operation a captain spends many months at the Navy's Nuclear Power School studying, are equipped to produce 20 years' worth of electricity. In addition to possessing sailing and navigation chops, every carrier's commanding officer is required to be an accomplished aviator. Captain Groothousen, for example, who got his wings in 1976, first flew A-7E Corsairs aboard America and Independence, then flew F/A-18 Hornets, became a Hornet instructor pilot, and finally commanded a Hornet squadron before assuming command of his first ship, the U.S.S. Shreveport, an amphibious-assault transport.