RSSHEADLINES SKYSPORTS

There are many good reasons to go see the USS_Hornet. From an engineering standpoint, it's amazing. It is pretty much it's own mobile city. It has a power station, water purification, an airport, communications, food entertainment. Docents lead tours in many facets of the ships features, with first hand stories of the experience of being in service on the vessel. 

There are 4 engines on the ship, here are the 11 oil burners to one of them. Essentially they heat seawater to steam.

The steam turns a turbine, which then through a transmission goes a propeller. The setup is repeated 4 times. Here is the control panel to control the furnace, the steam is also moved around the ship and used for heat and now distilled water. Bare in mind this is 1940's technology.

Up top in the bridge, there are control mechanisms, which you could mistakenly thing directly controlled the ship. The devices are more communication systems to the various devices that power and maneuver the ship.

Up in the bridge steering was not priority number one. Strategizing, commanding, communication

and navigation were more important most of the time.

The tower looks pretty small compared with the rest of the ship.

This F14 tomcat was used in top gun I believe.

The sense of scale is really incredible.

The navigation room is interesting too, before GPS LORAN was the primary.

Below deck is the "top gun" room where pilots were briefed among other stuff. The room has a completely different look than the rest of the ship. Which is sort of stainless steel and cream. All in all a fun interesting day out. 

The museum ship is moored in Alemada now, east across the bay from San Francisco.