The USS Nimitz is the first of 10 of its class of aircraft carriers, the largest warships in the world, according to the Navy. The Nimitz class includes the USS Abraham Lincoln. The ships are designed for a 50-year service life with one mid-life refueling.
• Builder: Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Co., Newport News, Va.
• Commissioned: May 3, 1975
• Propulsion: Nuclear (two reactors)
• Length: 1,092 feet; nearly as long as the Empire State Building is tall
• Width: 252 feet
• Speed: 30-plus knots
• Weight: 95,000 tons
• Height, keel to mast: 244 feet (equal to a 24-story building)
• Rudders: Two (29 by 22 feet)
• Anchors: Two (30 tons each)
• Anchor chains: 1,082 feet and 367.5 tons each (365 lbs per link)
• Flight deck area: 4.5 acres
• Propellers: Four (each 25 feet wide)
• Size of air wing (fleet): Up to 75 aircraft
• Aircraft elevators: Four (3,880 square feet each)
• Spaces (rooms): More than 3,000
• Crew: During a standard deployment, the ship is home to approximately 6,000 sailors.
• Types of aircraft: F/A-18E/F Super Hornet (fighter); F/A-18C Hornet (fighter); EA-6B Prowler (electronic warfare); C-2A Greyhound (cargo); E-2C Hawkeye 2000 (radar and communication); SH-60F/H Seahawk (helicopter).
• Arresting cables: Each carrier-based aircraft has a tailhook used to catch one of the four steel cables stretched across the flight deck, bringing the plane, traveling at 150 miles per hour, to a complete stop in about 320 feet.
• Catapults: One of four steam-powered catapults thrusts a 60,000-pound aircraft 300 feet, from zero to 165 miles per hour in two seconds.
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