Everything about Flagship totally explained
A
flagship is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, a designation given on account of being either the largest, fastest, newest, most heavily armed or, for publicity purposes, the most well known. In military terms, it's a 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.
HMS Victory still serves the
Royal Navy today as the flagship of the Commander-in-Chief Naval Home Command making her the oldest commissioned warship in service.
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.
Private ship
A
private ship is a warship which has no flag officer on board, and thus isn't a flag ship.
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. Auto companies usually have a flagship in the form of their most important car. The
Mercedes-Benz S-Class is one example, and the
Jaguar XJ is another.
Flagship stores
A
flagship store, or simply a
flagship, is a main store from a retailer designed to serve a mainstream of customers. Most noticeably, flagships are found in prominent shopping districts (for example
Ginza,
Madison Avenue, etc.) which are targets for a main set of worldwide high-income shoppers. Because of this, shopping at an
upscale flagship is seen as high social/economic status. Flagships are, as well, larger in retail size (more than its retailer's outlets and in mall stores) and the most volumes in merchandise. Thus, they become a more preferred shopping destination for the retailers goods by consumers. Generally, flagships are meant to overshadow its sister stores in its area.
For example, the brand
Abercrombie & Fitch holds 359 mall stores in the
U.S. and operates two flagships in the country: one on
Fifth Avenue and one at
The Grove at Farmers Market to serve people on the
east coast and the west coast of the U.S. (respectively). The brand also marked expansion into the
United Kingdom with a flagship in
Savile Row and will add stores around the flagship. Meanwhile, it's in preparations to launch a flagship in
Ginza to mark
Asian expansion.
Many other upscale retailers operate flagships worldwide. This includes but isn't limited to:
Prada,
Louis Vuitton,
Polo Ralph Lauren (which claims its flagship in
Tokyo, Japan to be a milestone for the brand),
Dior, and
The Apple Store among numerous others. The A&F brand,
Hollister Co., is slated to open its first flagship by
2009.
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 isn't only priced roughly $11,000 below the
Escalade but it's 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.
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 doesn't 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 isn't an admiral, he's 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.
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's the most important ship in the fleet.
In for the
Xbox 360, the flagship of the Emmerian fleet is identified as the Marigold, perhaps because it's the ship that carries the highest-ranking surviving officers.
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's 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
In the
United States,
state universities are often systems of numerous campuses in widely-separated locations. In this context,
flagship can mean either the oldest campus in the system, or it can mean any of the larger and better-known campuses.
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 1862 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."
Fulfilling the naval analogy, it's often (though not always) the site of the administrative headquarters for the system.
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.
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's 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.
Nevertheless, it's common for state university officials to use the term "flagship" in official contexts, for example "As the system's flagship campus, [UMass-]Amherst draws from throughout the Commonwealth, the nation and the world;" "It is a pleasure to report to the General Assembly on the accomplishments and initiatives of the State's Flagship University."
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 (F, F2, F3, F4, F5, F6, D1, D2 and D3series).
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