Don’t know if the big E’s top speed is still classified or not. She left Puget Sound for the Hawaiian Islands in a hurry after a hurricane in the mid sixties. from dropping the lines in Bremerton to putting out the lines in Oahu she averaged 62 miles an hour.
When I was in the Fleet...We used to plane guard for the Big E on a regular basis...What was funny, if there was no way top find the course and speed for proper winds for launch and recovery of aircraft...
They made their own winds...Yeah, they could go very fast...
Try keeping up with something like that (at apsecific spot, or station) was kinda frustrating...I think it was an unspoken agreementy that those ships designated to work that plane guard duty just had to kind be in the area to help pick up the crews if they ended up in the drink...
Which I never heard happening in my carreer off that carrier...
Now the USS Ranger??? That was a different story...It didn’t get the un-official moniker of “Danger Ranger” for nothing...No offense intended to guys who served on that ship...hehe
There used to be a story hanging around out there that they once saw a rooster tail coming out the back of the Big E when they were at speed...
That might have been something neat to see...I can neither confirm, or deny, that I ever saw that occur...;-)