The term flying bridge, which modern usage has corrupted to "flybridge," has its origins in the naval vessels of the 1800s. For centuries the design of warships included a main deck protected by very high, heavy bulwarks. These bulwarks provided protection (in theory) to the men manning the guns on these decks.
Until the mid-1800s, these ships were propelled by sail, and they were steered by a tiller or wheel from the raised aft deck over the rudder. This deck provided the visibility needed to navigate and steer the ship.
When in the mid-1800s, steam propulsion was added to augment the sails, this posed a new problem. Smoke. Burning coal and not having the benefit of the EPA's stack-scrubber requirements, these ships put out prodigious amounts of thick, sooty, cinder-laden smoke. Given the forward motion of the ship and the fickle nature of the wind, the raised aft helm stations were more often than not enveloped in choking clouds of smoke and cinders.
This drove somebody to come up with the idea to design a platform that spanned the deck with its ends on top of the high bulwarks forward of the stack. This provided a high vantage point for conning the ship and directing maneuvers in battle but was free (usually) of the choking, blinding stack smoke.
But what to call it? Well, it spanned the deck from bulwark to bulwark like a bridge. And the people on it were way up in the air (relatively speaking), flying, as it were, above the deck. And there it was: flying bridge.
Some ships even had a remote helm station up there complete with a big wheel, compass, and so on.
The term bridge stuck around to be applied to the place (usually elevated) from which a vessel was conned. The "flying" was dropped because the bridge was generally on top of a superstructure of some sort so was no longer "suspended" in the air.
How or when the term flying bridge was corrupted to flybridge is something I don't know, although I suspect it was done by the same crowd that came up with the notion of calling a recreational cabin cruiser a "trawler."
Having developed at an early age a major interest in the American Civil War, particularly the fresh and salt water naval aspects of it, many years ago in Hawaii I built a good-sized scale model of the CSS Alabama, the Confederate raider that was built in England and attacked US shipping in several oceans. The Alabama had a flying bridge, which was the first time I'd encountered this term.
My model is long gone. But I came across these photos of other models of the Alabama that show the flying bridge as well as a photo taken on on the Alabama during the ship's visit to South Africa in August, 1863. The photo was being used in a discussion about the origin of the Alabama's cannon, hence the yellow arrow pointing to the gun in the foreground.
Until the mid-1800s, these ships were propelled by sail, and they were steered by a tiller or wheel from the raised aft deck over the rudder. This deck provided the visibility needed to navigate and steer the ship.
When in the mid-1800s, steam propulsion was added to augment the sails, this posed a new problem. Smoke. Burning coal and not having the benefit of the EPA's stack-scrubber requirements, these ships put out prodigious amounts of thick, sooty, cinder-laden smoke. Given the forward motion of the ship and the fickle nature of the wind, the raised aft helm stations were more often than not enveloped in choking clouds of smoke and cinders.
This drove somebody to come up with the idea to design a platform that spanned the deck with its ends on top of the high bulwarks forward of the stack. This provided a high vantage point for conning the ship and directing maneuvers in battle but was free (usually) of the choking, blinding stack smoke.
But what to call it? Well, it spanned the deck from bulwark to bulwark like a bridge. And the people on it were way up in the air (relatively speaking), flying, as it were, above the deck. And there it was: flying bridge.
Some ships even had a remote helm station up there complete with a big wheel, compass, and so on.
The term bridge stuck around to be applied to the place (usually elevated) from which a vessel was conned. The "flying" was dropped because the bridge was generally on top of a superstructure of some sort so was no longer "suspended" in the air.
How or when the term flying bridge was corrupted to flybridge is something I don't know, although I suspect it was done by the same crowd that came up with the notion of calling a recreational cabin cruiser a "trawler."
Having developed at an early age a major interest in the American Civil War, particularly the fresh and salt water naval aspects of it, many years ago in Hawaii I built a good-sized scale model of the CSS Alabama, the Confederate raider that was built in England and attacked US shipping in several oceans. The Alabama had a flying bridge, which was the first time I'd encountered this term.
My model is long gone. But I came across these photos of other models of the Alabama that show the flying bridge as well as a photo taken on on the Alabama during the ship's visit to South Africa in August, 1863. The photo was being used in a discussion about the origin of the Alabama's cannon, hence the yellow arrow pointing to the gun in the foreground.
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