At twenty-two months to launch, everything aft to the fantail and up to the main/hangar deck is in place. Many of the living and habitation spaces are also included in this phase, as well as the majority of the carrier's protection systems (double bottoms, heavy plating, and voids-hollow spaces like fuel tanks, etc.). Now the assembly is beginning to look like a ship. At eighteen months to launch, the hangar deck is taking shape, along with the great overhanging "sponson" structures that extend out to port and starboard. Assembly of the bow is beginning. The flag (admiral's staff) and air wing spaces are fitted out, as well the offices for the various ship's departments. By fourteen months to launch, the hangar deck, sponson, and bow structures are in place, and the first parts of the flight deck are filling in amidships. After four more months, the hangar and flight decks are almost finished. Meanwhile, the lower bow has been completed, as well as the entire fantail structure. At two months before launch, the entire island structure-an eight-story building-is lifted onto the deck of the ship. This final Superlift represents the completion of major construction.
While the NNS yard workers seal up the hull and make it watertight, the managers and planners get ready for the actual launching of the ship. The launching ceremony is similar in many ways to the keel-laying just over two-and-a-half years earlier. Again, the Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations are present, as is the carrier's sponsor. She gets to break the traditional bottle of champagne over the new carrier's bow. A hint, though: Scratch the bottle first with a diamond-tipped scribe to ensure a clean break. Long-winded speeches, prayers, and benedictions complete the launching ritual. Then things get deadly serious and precise.
Since Dry Dock 12 is not deep enough to float off a finished Nimitz-class carrier, as soon as the hull structure is complete, it must be quickly floated out of the dock. Then the uncompleted carrier can be moved to a deeper part of the James River channel, where it can be moored to a fitting-out wharf for completion. The depth of the dock and the tidal conditions of the Tidewater region allow very little margin for error-meaning that the launching of a carrier is synchronized with the highest tide in a given month, to provide maximum clearance over the end of the dry-dock gate.
Before this can begin, any other ships in Dry Dock 12 are floated out and the movable cofferdam is removed. Then the dock is carefully flooded, with hundreds of NNS and Navy personnel monitoring tidal conditions and the watertight integrity of the carrier. When the dock is fully flooded and the ship has lifted off the keel blocks, the gate is opened. Now things happen fast. As a small tugboat pulls the carrier out of the dry dock, other tugboats wait just outside in the river to take control of the massive hulk. When the carrier is finally clear of the gate and safely into the deep channel of the river, it is turned and towed downstream to the fitting-out wharf on the southern end of the NNS property. Here it will be moored until it is turned over to the Navy, approximately two years later.
While it is an impressive sight sitting at the fitting-out dock, the mass of metal floating there is hardly a ship of war. It is still, in naval terminology, just a "hulk." Making it into a habitable vessel is the job of almost 2,600 NNS yard workers-everything from nuclear-reactor engineers to diesel-engine mechanics, computer specialists to roughneck welders. Building a modern warship takes almost every technology and tradecraft known. Imagine a skyscraper with offices, restaurants, workshops, stores, and apartments that can steam at more than thirty knots, with a four-and-a-half-acre airfield on the roof. That is a fair description of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.
During a visit to NNS in the fall of 1997, I spent some time aboard the USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) while she was about nine months from commissioning and delivery. I'd like to share with you some of my experiences there. My first stop, after NNS and Navy officials led me aboard, was the massive hangar deck. At 684 feet/208.5 meters long, 108 feet/33 meters wide, and 25 feet/7.6 meters tall, it is designed to provide a dry, safe place to store and maintain the aircraft of the embarked wing. As we walked forward, I passed several large access holes that led into the two nuclear reactor compartments below. These would be buttoned up shortly, my guides told me. The nuclear fuel packages would then be installed, followed by testing and certification of the twin A4W reactor plants. All around the hangar deck, workers were busy welding and installing pieces of equipment.
After climbing several ladders, we emerged on the flight deck, where hundreds more NNS workers were hustling about at their tasks, and then moved forward to the catapults, which were in the process of testing and certification. They are installed in pairs on the bow and the deck angle port-side, and each of the four 302-foot/92.1-meter-long C13 Mod. 1 catapults is capable of launching an aircraft every few minutes (the cycle time depends largely on the skill of the deck crew). Each catapult is powered by a pair of steam cylinders, which are built into the flight deck, and normally use high-pressure saturated steam from the reactor plant; but since the reactors were not yet powered up, Truman drew her power, water, and steam from plants dockside.
Testing such powerful machines is a dramatic procedure. Scattered around the deck were a number of orange-painted, water-filled, wheeled trolleys called deadweights. Each deadweight simulates a fully loaded aircraft, with attachment points that allow it to be hitched to the shuttle of a catapult. After the bow has been pointed into the James River channel, and the Coast Guard and local boaters have been suitably warned, each catapult fires the entire range of deadweights. The tests are noisy and the sight of the weights flying hundreds of yards/meters into the channel is bizarre. Nevertheless, this is a highly effective way to prove that the machinery is ready. After leaving the catapults, we headed aft to inspect the catapult control station between Catapults 1 and 2.[35] Set on a hydraulically raised platform under an armored steel door, the control station is a pod where the catapult officer-or "shooter"-can control the catapults in safety and comfort. Another identical station is located on the port side, controlling Catapults 3 and 4.
Next we walked over to the island structure, where our guides showed us how the many systems on the flag and navigation bridges, the primary flight control, and the meteorology office were installed. Although the basic Nimitz design is over thirty years old, the many changes bringing it into the 21st century are quite visible. Up on the Truman's navigation bridge, for example, are many of the "Smart Ship" systems (mentioned in the second chapter) that make it possible for three people to steer the ship from auto-matedcontrol stations (before, almost two dozen people were required to do the same job). Similar systems will be scattered throughout the Truman, and will be tested when she goes to sea in 1998.
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The four catapults on every carrier are numbered 1 through 4, from the starboard bow (Catapult 1) to the port angle (Catapult 4).