EVERETT – With a big part of its pre-deployment training finished, and the ship still sparkling from its stay in the Bremerton shipyard, the USS Abraham Lincoln is almost ready for battle.
“If we had to go to war right now, I think we pretty darn near could,” said Navy Capt. Ron Horton, executive officer of the Lincoln.
The Everett-based carrier recently returned to its home port after sea trials that followed roughly 11 months’ worth of repairs during a spell in dry dock in Bremerton. The overhaul, which cost in the ballpark of $280 million, should keep the Lincoln out of dry dock for another 12 years.
Even so, the crew of the Lincoln is still dazzled by improvements that have been made on the 16-year-old Nimitz-class carrier.
“All the equipment is like new again,” Horton said. He compared the repair work to what happens when someone takes a car in for a major tuneup.
‘We just had our 30,000-mile checkup. We got new tires, new fan belts, new pumps,” Horton said.
To be sure, essential alterations have been made on the $4.5 billion ship.
The changes include a rebuilt “combat direction center” – the area commonly called the eyes, ears and brain of the carrier – where sailors track aircraft and other ships. The combat center has new computers, displays and other equipment and has been significantly enhanced, Horton said.
Numerous other areas on the carrier have also been modernized or improved, he added, including the nuclear reactor plant and the berthing areas where sailors sleep.
“The crew got all new mattresses,” Horton said, a huge morale booster.
“Instead of sleeping on a little mattress like this,” he said, holding two fingers an inch apart, “they’ve got nice mattresses now. And the crew loves them. It’s a big quality-of-life issue for the crew.”
Airman Apprentice Andre Dismuke agreed. “They’re much better.”
“They were thin,” he said charitably, and a bit more diplomatically than another sailor who compared the mattress-depth disparity as a choice between a cardboard-thin crust pizza and another that’s deep dish.
For those who work topside on the Lincoln’s 4.5-acre flight deck, the new nonskid surface is the biggest improvement.
After repeated jet landings and wear-and-tear at sea, chunks of the surface can break off. And that can mean big trouble if those pieces get sucked into a million-dollar jet engine.
Senior Chief Petty Officer Dan Harrell said the Lincoln’s flight deck was stripped down to bare metal, and then coated with primer, before the nonskid surface was put on by civilian contractors.
But that wasn’t as easy as it sounds. The surface had to be practically sterile for the material to stick without flaking off.
Chief Petty Officer Chris Klopfer, the flight deck chief, said resurfacing the flat top took almost six weeks, and cost about $1.5 million.
Crews monitored the temperature, the wind, the humidity and other factors to make sure the surface would adhere to the deck.
The flight deck has seen more than 1,400 landings during recent training, and Klopfer said he hasn’t seen any chunks of the new surface break off.
“We haven’t had any of that. We’re real happy with it,” Klopfer said.
Harrell, the top chief in the Lincoln’s air department, said the flight deck was recertified during the Lincoln’s recent sea trials. And the air department crews who operate the ship’s four catapults and other gear have passed their pre-deployment tests.
“We’ve got fully qualified crews. We’re ready for combat missions,” Harrell said.
Before the carrier’s next deployment, the Lincoln’s air wing must complete a series of tests later this summer. The Lincoln also has mandatory war games with other ships in its strike group during a training exercise in early fall.
The Lincoln is expected to deploy next spring, its first deployment since its came home in May 2003 from record-breaking 290-day stint at sea for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Horton, the Lincoln’s executive officer, said the ship looks better now than when President Bush stepped on board just before its last homecoming. He recalled how the ship looked when it was ripped apart in the shipyard four months ago, and how he asked his crew to spruce the Abe up for its return to Everett.
“I challenged the crew to make this ship, on July 1, look like it did … on May 1, when the president was here,” Horton said.
“And they beat me. It looked better. I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “I’m unbelievably proud of them.”
Reporter Brian Kelly: 425-339-3422 or kelly@heraldnet.com.
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