Photo courtesy of Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding
carrier building
Navy designing the Forrestal-class supercarriers, the first of which was commissioned in 1955. The Forrestals were based upon much of the design work of the United States, with a somewhat more conventional layout including an “island” bridge structure on the starboard side. What was different about the Forrestals was their size (more than 76,000 tons full-load displacement), making them able to carry more aviation fuel and ordnance to sustain flight operations; an enclosed “hurricane” bow; and a host of new design innovations originated by the British. These included steam catapults, a stabilized light system to assist pilots during landings, and an angled flight deck configuration that made “touch-and-go” aborts finally possible. This last feature vastly improved flight safety on board carriers, saving countless aircraft and aircrew personnel. Four of the Forrestal-class supercarriers were constructed, followed by four more improved models of the Kitty Hawk class. USS Kitty Hawk (CV 65), which was commissioned in 1961, was even larger (almost 82,000 tons full-load displacement) than Forrestal, again with more stowage for fuel and ordnance, and for the first time on a carrier, surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). The next U.S. Navy supercarrier, the one-off USS Enterprise (CVN 65 –93,500 tons full-load displacement), was the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier ever built, with eight A2W 35,000-horsepower atomic reactors in place of the eight oil-fired boilers on the Forrestals and Kitty Hawks. These made Enterprise the fastest, most powerful warship in the world, able to cruise almost indefinitely, and requiring only food, aviation fuel, and ordnance to stay at sea. This was the state of the Navy’s supercarrier development when the United States entered the war in Vietnam in the mid-1960s, where carrierbased aircraft provided tens of thousands of combat sorties “over the beach” in support of U.S. ground and strike operations. For more than a decade, U.S. carriers became flexible mobile airfields able to move between locations in the northern (“Yankee Station”) and southern (“Dixie Station”) South China Sea. Along the way, a number of lessons were learned about aircraft carrier design and operations. The first of these was that bigger was better, particularly when it involved greater aviation fuel and ordnance stowage, allowing for longer time on station and staying in the fight. Additionally, three terrible fires on board USS Oriskany (CV 34), Forrestal, and Enterprise taught valuable lessons about better weapons handling, firefighting, and damage control on carriers. Finally, the emergence of the Soviet navy as a peer competitor in the open oceans had significant inputs into the design of the lead ship of the next class of American aircraft carrier: the Nimitz. Nimitz (the largest warship in history at 97,000 tons full-load displacement) was designed to be the first of a three-ship class that would provide the Navy with a platform that would take advantage of every lesson learned about carrier design and construction since World War II. Powered by a pair of A4W nuclear reactors (with the same 280,000 horsepower as Enterprise’s eight A2Ws), Nimitz would have the largest stowage capacity possible for aviation fuel, ordnance, and crew consumables. Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia, long a leader in aircraft carrier construction and the builder of Enterprise, was selected to build the first of the Nimitzclass ships, and laid down her keel in July 1968.
THE LONG RUN: USS NIMITZ TO USS RONALD REAGAN “We shall build good ships here. At a profit – if we can. At a loss – if we must. But always good ships,” stated Collis Potter Huntington, founder, Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Company.
Unlike Nimitz, the final carriers of the class have been assembled using modular construction techniques. Here George H.W. Bush’s lower bow section, with its bulbous bow bulb, is lowered into place.
Located on 550 acres on the north bank of the James River in the Virginia Tidewater Region, NGSB – Newport News is the sole builder of nuclearpowered aircraft carriers for the Navy. The key pieces of infrastructure that make this possible can be found on the western end of the company’s property, where Dry Dock 12 is located and Nimitz-class carriers are constructed. Just under 2,172 feet long, Dock 12 is the largest such facility in the western hemisphere, and can be subdivided into two separate wet/ dry construction facilities with the addition of a removable/movable caisson.
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