The Big E — USS Enterprise (CVN-65), the home plate you launch from
The Big E is where every Hornet Bay sortie begins and ends: a 342-metre angled-deck carrier with Cat 1 reserved for you, Cat 2 for the air wing, and a meatball guiding you to the 3-wire.
Every sortie in Hornet Bay starts and, if you follow the rules, ends in the same place: a 342-metre slab of grey steel doing a steady course through the bay. The Print Bay lists her at a real length of 342 m, and she is the one ship in the sim that matters more than any other, because she is your point of origin.
What you are standing on
USS Enterprise was the Navy’s first nuclear-powered carrier, commissioned in 1961. In the sim she is the home plate: a flat-top with a boxy, flat-roofed island and a landing strip angled off to port, as covered in the angle deck post and the island rebuild. The hull number, 65, is painted big on the deck.
In the sim
- Cat 1 is yours. You taxi to the shuttle, ride the holdback, and the cockpit tells you “CAT 1 HOLDBACK — 90% THRUST FOR THE SHOT” before the stroke flings you off the bow.
- Cat 2 belongs to the air wing. The starboard bow cat launches the squadron’s jets while you wait your turn, and the yellow shirts work both shooters.
- The landing strip is the angled deck. Wires, meatball and aim point all derive from the same strip geometry, so what you see is what you trap on.
- The meatball rides the port edge and shows you the 3.5° glideslope. Come aboard with gear or hook up and the red wave-off lamps flash.
- The 3-wire is the one the air wing aims for: their jets flare to catch it, and the wire stops a 62 m/s arrival in about two seconds.
Escorts and a model for your desk
She never sails alone. Four station-keeping escorts hold a picket around her, and the cruiser ahead is also in the Print Bay, along with the Big E herself: scaled to 250 mm long, six angles of her on the shelf.
One standing rule applies, and it is the reason she matters: a mission only counts as complete when you return to the point of origin. Land at another airfield and you can rearm and refuel, but you still have to come home.
Try this: take off from the carrier, circle once, then fly the break and put the meatball in the centre of the row. Do it three times and you will never look at a runway the same way.
— HB