USS Ronald Reagan Overview

Welcome on board the USS Ronald Reagan as we slip out to sea past the skyline of San Diego. And you might well be asking what does an aircraft carrier have to do with America's Heartland, with a show about agriculture. Well, a couple of things quickly come to mind. One, many of the men and women on this ship have their roots and values buried deep in the heartland. They come from the ranches, the farms and the small farming communities. And two, this ship will hold 6,000 personnel. Out at sea, that translates to 18,000 meals served on board each and every day. Galley Supervisor, Antonio Padilla, says, "We work 24 hours a day in the galley. We never stop working. Basically we go from one meal to the next. We don't stop. We clean up. We go onto the next meal."

We spent four days off San Diego on a training mission. The deck crews, ordnance teams, and galley staff often worked double-shifts, sixteen-hour days, building up powerful appetites and an almost constant need to refuel. More on that later. But first, some background. The USS Ronald Reagan was named in honor of the former President and California governor, Ronald Wilson Reagan. Before entering politics, he worked in the Army's Film Office during World War Two and in 1957 played a submarine captain in "Hellcats of the Navy."

Launched in 2003, Reagan's namesake is a nuclear aircraft carrier, powered by two tightly-guarded nuclear reactors generating enough juice to keep this ship at sea for twenty years. During our trip Terry Kraft was Commanding Officer. He says, "We get to travel all over the world. I've taken this ship halfway across the world and back twice since I've been here." The Captain's stateroom is patterned after Reagan's office. And the ship pays homage to the President in an onboard museum filled with memorabilia, film and audio clips. But make no mistake; this is no cushy cruise ship. It's the linchpin in a battle group traveling to hotspots and war zones like the Persian Gulf.

The Reagan towers twenty stories above the waterline. It's nearly eleven hundred feet long-as long as the Empire State Building is tall. Top speed: more than thirty knots, or 35 miles per hour. The flight deck covers four-and-a-half acres, the size of a small farm. Fully loaded, there are more than 80 aircraft on-board, from helicopters to F/A-18 fighter jets. Most of the attention on-board revolves around the fighter pilots. Landing one of these high-speed machines on a rolling, pitching deck is among the most dangerous jobs in the world On landing, the jet's tailhook snags an arresting cable, yanking the plane to a sudden stop. At take off, the plane is held in place at full throttle, then "catapulted" off at 110 miles per hour within two and a half seconds. There is no room for error. Deck crewman Judy Goodwin explains her job, "I am an aviation Bosun's mate and I work on the bow catapults which launch the aircraft off the flight deck." The deck crews-both men and women--can also find themselves in harm's way. Judy adds, "It's really, really exciting. A little dangerous. I've had some encounters but it's great."