Aircraft Carrier Deck Surface

Ahh, I missed that one!
I was on board for Refresher Training in Nov. ’85, and again every time she left port fron Aug.’86 to Dec.’87, but I was temporarily assigned to base headquarters making I.D cards during RIMPAC ’86.

I was, however, on board when we visited Vancouver for the closing of Expo ’86, and saw a lot of the city then.

USS Ranger

This is for “Bager1968”, a couple pictures of USS Ranger I took when I was in the RCN during Rimpac 1986.

I served in the United States Navy from ’98 until March of 2005, and I’ve had a few encounters with “non-skid”, myself. I was attatched to VFA-15 during deployments aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71); and, the USS Enterprise (CVN-65). I was never ship’s company; so, I couldn’t ellaborate as to the maintenance procedures followed by the ABE’s. As for myself, I was a “tron” , AT (Aviation Electronics Technician – Organizational); so I had absolutely no dealings with the care of the surface of the flight deck, aside from being part of many “scrubex” (evolution where the deck is hosed down with a cleaning agent, and scrubbed down with heavy push-brooms); but, I have a couple of nice “momentos” from when I had a close encounter with the deck. All I can say is, OUCH! :))

I crossed a few decks in my time and I can tell you now the surface is a tar material similar (though not the same as) what you find on the road.

I had a chunck of it as a memory from my famous rid in the Tomcat, it came from USS Constellation. Ahhhh the memories!

The USS Bon Homme Richard had wooden deck untill the mid 60´s ..I though i should just add a historical touch to this debate !

-webmaster of aircraftprofiles.dk

When I was in the Coast Guard we used to have to ‘non skid’ our decks on the ship….we laid down a heavy coat of ‘junk paint’ on top of bare metal (this was of course after the deck had already been stripped by deck growlers of it’s previous coat of non skid all the way down to bare metal)….the junk paint was applied thickly, areas that needed to be taped off were, and then the heavy grit sand was laid down thickly on top of it and the paint allowed to dry….once dry, the remainder of the grit was vacuumed off and swept down, vacuumed again to remove any remaining loose particles, then the final coat of paint sprayed or rolled over it (some of the surface areas of our ship were red, others black….a time consuming process, evne for an 180 fott long coast guard cutter….would’nt even want to IMAGINE what amount of time and effort it would take to do a flight deck on a Nimitz class carrier!

Mark

Having served aboard the USS Ranger CV-61, I can tell you that “non-skid” (that is exactly what we called it, but may not be the “official” name) is very hard on the skin!

You are not supposed to go sliding on it, that’s the whole idea. It helps keep the aircraft from sliding around when the ship is rolling, when it is raining or snowing, when there is oil (hydraulic fliud, jet fuel, etc) spilled on the deck, or a dozen other possibilities. The last thing you want a carrier’s deck to be is smooth and slippery!

As for what it is made of, I don’t know. It is “painted” onto the primer-coated steel deck, and is a rubbery compound with very fine gravel mixed in.

All I’ve seen is pictures but it seems to resemble something like the grip tape you see on a skateboard but a lot courser. I just remember thinking that would give you some serious road-rash if you wiped out on it.

I visited the USS “George Washington” a few years ago in Cannes, and remember that the deck had a particularly rough surface, like coarse non-slip material, plastic or rubber, I seem to remember, although my memory is fading . . .
It certainly wasn’t bare (or painted) steel, anyway.