While perusing the U.S. Navy’s website, I noticed that the Enterprise (CVN-65) was the first nuclear carrier, deployed in Nov., 1961. The next active carrier is the John F. Kennedy (CV-67), deployed in Sept., 1968. Next in line, we see the Nimitz (CVN-68).
Now, the Enterprise, and everything after the JFK are nuclear-powered. The JFK isn’t. What happened?
It looks like the Enterprise and JFK may have been sister ships, with one fitted for nuclear and the other with boilers (this makes some sense, since the JFK has 8 boilers, and the Enterprise has 8 reactors, whereas all carriers from the Nimitz forward only have 2 reactors). Is this the case? And, if so, which was the “intended” design - nuclear or diesel (steam?)? Or was the Enterprise simply a prototype for nuclear plants?
Also, as a bonus question, what’s the deal with the America (CV-66)? Its run seemed to have lasted only about a year and a half, and it has been stricken from the Navy’s list; it is to be scrapped.
Huh? This page says it was in active service from January 1965 to August 1996. That’s 31.5 years, not one and a half. Maybe a typo in your source on one of the dates?
That’s one of my favorite sites. That page should help answer everything you should want to know. It looks like the Enterprise finished a refit in 1994 of it’s refueling complex, so I’ll assume it’s military standard now.
Under old rules, it was to be decomissioned in 2013 and replaced by CVX-78, one of the newer designs. Given the changes since then, it’s hard to tell.
The JFK and Enterprise are not “sister ships” The JFK is Kitty Hawk (CV-63) class along with the America IIRC. The Kitty Hawk class introduced a new flight desck design that was an improvement over the previous Forrestal class carriers. I was on the Forrestal class Ranger which had the island more forward with two elevators on each side forward. The port side elevator was actually in the angle deck landing area making it nearly useless. We rarely used it because if it ever failed in the down position the ship would be crippled with no way to land planes. The Kitty Hawk moved the island aft with two starboard elevators forward and one on each side aft with the single portside elevator being out of the landing area.
The enterprise is a single class ship as subsequent nuclear powered carriers have all been of the much larger Nimitz class. The Big E also was originally fitted with planar array antennas around the island but they have been removed. All those ships have the same general lay out as the Kitty Hawk class but the Nimitz class ships are much bigger.
(The Kitty Hawk Class includes the two conventionally-powered ships built just before Enterprise, Kitty Hawk and Constellation, as well as the conventionally-powered America, built right after Enterprise.)
Actually Enterprise is a touch longer than the Nimitz-class ships (1,101 feet, 2 inches, versus 1,092 feet), but the Nimitz-class ships are considerably heavier (97,000 tons vs. 89,600 tons).
You are correct sir, but as you noted the Nimitz class ships have greater displacment and have room for more a few more aircraft. As any woman will tell you length isn’t the only thing or even the most important. The Forrestal class ships were about the same length but still smaller than the kitty Hawk class. My air wing was able to fit all the squadrons’s planes on the Constellation but on the Ranger we had to leave one or two planes from each squadron in the Phillippines when we went to the Indian Ocean.
Ah-ha! It was the “modified Kitty Hawk class” bit that threw me; the fact that the JFK was not given a class designation on the Navy’s site made me think it was more closely related to the Enterprise than the Kitty Hawk. In terms of lineage the non-nuclear power plant makes sense, despite it’s chronological appearance.