The Hangar Deck

The Hangar Deck is the level of entry on to the Lexington.  It has a big 3D theatre that was showing a film called Carrier.  The film moved back and forth from a modern day carrier group on a combined international training exercise to historic footage of carriers in action.  It also has several historic planes and an area where aircraft preservation and restoration is being done.  The blue aircraft on the left in this photo is the Avenger flown by George Bush  Sr. in WWII.

This is a scale model of the battleship USS South Dakota.  For much of it’s time in the Pacific it carried no identifying markings and was referred to in war reports and press releases as Battleship X.  I can’t say that I completely understood that piece of it’s history, but suffice it to say it was some sort of naval slight of hand.

The Hangar Deck also had a restaurant and the all important souvenir store. 😉

The Flight Deck

View from the bow.  The aft section of the Flight Deck is an aircraft museum containing various planes and jets from history that were part of carrier flight operations.

The white turnstiles you see are part of the arresting cable system.  Those and the accumulators, just below the flight deck, were capable of absorbing 45,000 foot pounds of pressure.  They stop an aircraft coming in at around 120 knots in 350 feet.

The inside and the outside of the 5″ gun turrets.  It’s hard to get a good perspective from a photo but these two guns were manned by 11 guys crammed into this space.

 

An exposed section of the original decking.

 

 

The bridge and the wheel house.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The gun positions on the side of the carrier.  Those barrel looking things are the life rafts and that’s downtown Corpus Christi off in the distance.  It’s hard to see because of the reflections but the photo below shows all of the things that are contained in a life raft pod.

 

Next up, The Foc’Sle, Huh?