Home > Flagship

Used in this way, "flagship" is fundamentally a temporary designation; the flagship is wherever the admiral is flying his flag. However, admirals have always needed additional facilities; a meeting room large enough to hold all the captains of the fleet, and a place for the admiral's staff to make plans and draw up orders.

In the age of sailing ships, the flagship was typically a first-rate; the aft of one of the three decks would become the admiral's quarters and staff offices. This can be seen today on HMS Victory, the flagship of Admiral Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar, now at Portsmouth, England.

In the 20th century, ships became large enough that most types could accommodate commander and staff, and during World War II admirals would often prefer a faster ship over the largest one. Increasing communications and computing requirements have resulted in the design of specialized command and control ships to serve as flagship.

Flagship in language

As with so many other naval terms, flagship has crossed over into common parlance, where it means the most important or leading member of a group. It also come to be an adjective, as in the "flagship product" of a manufacturing company. A flagship station is also the "home" station of a broadcast network ( radioRadio A Radio network is a network system which distributes radio programming to multiple radio stations. Most radio networks also produce much of their programming. Originally, radio networks owned some or all of the radio stations that broadcast the net or TV).

The meaning of flagship has been loosely interpreted in works of fiction as well. For example, the USS EnterpriseThe United Star Ship Enterprise is a starship (a fictional type of spacecraft) in the fictional Star Trek universe, a science-fiction setting. Top Row (Left-To-Right): NCC-1701-C, NX-01, NCC-1701, NCC-1701-E Bottom Row (Left-To-Right): NCC-1701-D, NCC-170 in Star TrekStar Trek collectively refers to six science fiction television series, ten motion pictures, and hundreds of novels, video games, and other works of fiction all set within the same fictional universe created by Gene Roddenberry in the early to mid 1960s. is often referred to as the flagship of the United Federation of PlanetsThe Seal of The United Federation of Planets President Jaresh Inyo (2372) Capital Earth: Federation President's Office located in Paris, Starfleet Command in San Francisco Language English, although heavy use is made of the universal translator Founded 21, even though it does not carry commanding officers of higher rank than the captains aboard other ships.