FLAGSHIP

A 'flagship' is the ship used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships. The term originates from the custom of the commanding officer (usually, but not always, a flag officer) to fly a distinguishing flag.
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.

Contents

Private ship

Flagship in language

Broadcast stations

Automotive

Commercial Aviation

Fiction

University campuses

Photographic Equipment

References

Private ship

A 'private ship' is a warship which has no flag officer on board, and thus is not a flag ship.^[1]

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 has also come to be an adjective describing the most prominent or highly touted product, brand, location, or service among those offered by a company. It now has common derivations such as the "flagship brand" or "flagship product" of a manufacturing company or "flagship store" of a retail chain.

Broadcast stations

A flagship station is the "home" station of a broadcast network (radio or TV). It can be the station that produces the lion's share of material for the network, or the station in the parent company's home city or both. The term dates back to the mid-century years of broadcasting when the local stations themselves produced programs for the network, as PBS does today.
For example, the flagship stations of the ABC, NBC and CBS television networks (and ABC and CBS radio networks) are their owned and operated outlets in New York City. While a handful of PBS stations, including WGBH, KQED and WNET provide the lion's share of the web's programming, the TV industry has long given the "flagship" appellation to WNET, dating back to its years as the key outlet for PBS's predecessor, National Educational Television.
In sports broadcasting, the "flagship" is the sports team's primary station in the team's home market. For example, WGN radio and television are the flagships of the Chicago Cubs baseball team, which also has an extensive radio network.

Automotive

The term flagship is also used to describe the top or main vehicle manufactured by automotive marque. These vehicles are usually, but not always, the most expensive, prestigious and largest vehicles in the line-up.
While the flagship is always the most prestigious vehicle in a company's line-up, it may not always be the most expensive, or the largest. The Lincoln Town Car, for example, while considered the flagship of the Lincoln division, ranges roughly $6,000 below the Navigator in price. In the case of Cadillac the DTS flagship sedan is not only priced roughly $11,000 below the Escalade but it is also smaller, in terms of overall length and width, than the Escalade ESV.
However, the term is most often applied to sedans and usually only those manufactured luxury automobile marques.

Commercial Aviation

Air Traffic Control call sign for Canadair Regional Jet aircraft operated by Northwest Airlines as Northwest Airlink (Pinnacle). Pinnacle Airlines (an independent company) operates the Canadair Regional Jet(CRJ) throughout the United States.

Fiction

The meaning of "flagship" has been loosely interpreted in works of fiction as well. For example, the USS ''Enterprise (NCC-1701-D)'' on the TV series '' is often referred to as the flagship of the United Federation of Planets, even though it does not carry commanding officers of higher rank than the captains aboard other ships. This is because, in ''Star Trek'', the term seems to mean the ship that represents the fleet as a whole and hosts the most advanced technology and finest crew, though not necessarily the crew of the greatest rank.
In ''Star Wars'', Darth Vader's flagship is the Super Star Destroyer ''Executor''. Although Lord Vader is not an admiral, he has a special military rank in the Empire that makes him answerable only to the Emperor (and Grand Moff Tarkin, until the latter's death), and apparently all the officers in the Navy are under his command when needed. Vader uses the ''Executor'' as a flagship, leading a fleet of other ships from the ''Executor's bridge. The ship is not depicted as literally carrying a flag.
In the PlayStation 2 game ''Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War'', the main characters find themselves as part of a makeshift fleet fighting to stop the war between Osea and Yuktobania. The flagship of their fleet is the aircraft carrier ''Kestrel'', simply because it is the most important ship in the fleet.
In the Games Workshop game ''Battlefleet Gothic'', an admiral of at least one race must be present on the most expensive warship, regardless of the player's wishes.
In the computer game ''Homeworld 2'', the main Vaygr command ship/construction shipyard is appropriately labelled a "flagship".
In the TV show ''Battlestar Galactica'' the Battlestar Pegasus is correctly labeled the flag ship of the Colonial Fleet as it is the ship in which Admiral Cain commands.
In the 1985 animated TV series ''Thundercats'', Jaga and the Thundercats flee Thundera before it was destroyed. they were on board Jaga's Flagship that carried the Code of Thundera.
In The Super Dimension Fortress Macross animated series (later adapted as part of Robotech), the SDF-1 Macross was considered flagship of the UN Spacy despite it being made out of an abandoned alien vessel. The SDF-1 Macross was re-constructed by a government that unified Earth despite worldwide warfare.

University campuses

The phrase 'flagship campus' or 'flagship university' is often used with reference to state university systems in the United States, which often comprise numerous campuses in widely-separated locations. In this context, ''flagship'' means "fully mature public universities". According to Robert Berdahl, former University of California, Berkeley chancellor, "In most cases, these institutions were the first public universities to be established in their states. Many of what we now call the flagship campuses were established in the extraordinary period of university building that took place in the United States in the roughly three decades from the mid-1850s to the mid-1880s. Many came into being after the Morrill Act of 1863 provided the federal grants of land to the states to establish public universities. Some states built two institutions, a land-grant college focused on agriculture and the "mechanical arts" as well as general education, and another more directed at classical education and the other professions." The Future of Flagship Universities Robert M. Berdahl, Chancellor, University of California, Berkeley
Fulfilling the naval analogy, it is often (though not always^[2]) the site of the administrative headquarters for the system. In addition, in college athletics, it is likely to be referred to by the state name, for instance, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill is referred to in sports contexts as simply ''North Carolina'' while the other UNC campuses have their city name appended to them.
The phrase "''flagship''" came into existence in the 1950s when the Morrill Act schools were joined by newer campuses built in a wave of postwar expansion of state university system."It was in the context of this massive expansion, then, that the term "flagship" came to be used to refer to the original campus of the system, the campus from which branches were developed or other institutions attached. The metaphor obviously had a naval origin; each fleet has a flagship, the largest battleship or aircraft carrier from which the admiral directs the movements of the entire fleet."
Berdahl commented on the prestige and elite status of flagship campuses in the following:
:...those of us in "systems" of higher education are frequently actively discouraged from using the term "flagship" to refer to our campuses because it is seen as hurtful to the self-esteem of colleagues at other institutions in our systems. The use of the term is seen by some as elitist and boastful. It is viewed by many, in the context of the politics of higher education, as "politically incorrect." ... Only in the safe company of alumni is one permitted to use the term.op. cit.
Nevertheless, it is common for state university officials to use the term "flagship" in official contexts, e.g. "As the system's flagship campus, [UMass-]Amherst draws from throughout the Commonwealth, the nation and the world;"^[3] "It is a pleasure to report to the General Assembly on the accomplishments and initiatives of the State's Flagship University."^[4]

Photographic Equipment

The term flagship has also become adopted in photography. A flagship camera, like that in the automotive industry, is the leading product of the brand, representing the overall technological level of a company. Most famous of these flagship cameras include; The Canon 1-series(1D, 1Ds, 1vhs); Nikon single digit (F4, F5, F6, D1 and D2 series).

References

1. p670 Kemp, Peter "The Oxford Companion to Ships and the Sea", pub Oxford University Press, 1976, reprinted 1992. ISBN 0-19-282084-2
2. The University of California provides a counterexample; its flagship is the Berkeley campus, but its system headquarters are located in a non-campus office in the city of Oakland.
3. Strategic Action FY'97 - FY'01 III. A Vision of the Future: Reinventing the Dream David K. Scott
4. Testimony to the Maryland General Assembly Dr. C. D. Mote, Jr, President, University of Maryland, College Park