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'Big E' Will Soon be the Oldest
Norman Polmar | July 02, 2007
The U.S. Navy’s first nuclear-propelled aircraft carrier -- the USS Enterprise (CVN 65) -- will soon be the Navy’s oldest “flattop.” Today the oil-burning carrier Kitty Hawk (CV 63) is the oldest. Both ships were completed in 1961. The Kitty Hawk is based in Yokosuka, Japan; the only American carrier based overseas. She will be retired next year, and be replaced in Japan by the nuclear-propelled George Washington (CVN 73).

The Navy has recently awarded contracts for more than $40 million to the Northrop Grumman Corp. -- and to the firm’s yard at Newport News, Virginia -- to continue maintenance of the Enterprise and for inactivation planning. The “Big E” is schedule to be decommissioned in 2013, having been in service for 52 years -- a record for U.S. aircraft carriers. 

Decommissioning of the Enterprise will be the most complex effort yet undertaken to remove a nuclear ship from service. Previously the Navy has decommissioned nine nuclear cruisers (each with two reactors) and more than 100 nuclear submarines (all with one reactor except for a radar picket craft, the USS Triton [SSRN 586], which had a two-reactor plant).

The Enterprise has an eight-reactor nuclear plant. The cost of removing those reactors and providing burial for them, “cleaning” portions of the ship’s massive engineering spaces, and other decommissioning procedures are expected to cost several hundred million dollars.

With the Enterprise’s decommissioning, the number of large carriers in the Navy will drop to ten. However, the Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) is expected to be completed in 2015, raising the number of carriers back to the authorized 11-ship force.

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Copyright 2008 Norman Polmar. All opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily reflect those of Military.com.

  
About Norman Polmar

NORMAN POLMAR has been a consultant to several senior officials in the Navy and Department of Defense, and has directed several studies for U.S. and foreign shipbuilding and aerospace firms. Mr. Polmar has been a consultant to the Director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Mr. Polmar also served as a consultant to three U.S. Senators and to two members of the House of Representatives, as a consultant or advisor to three Secretaries of the Navy and two Chiefs of Naval Operations, and as a consultant to the Deputy Counselor to President Reagan.
           
Mr. Polmar has written or coauthored more than 40 books and numerous articles on naval, intelligence, and aviation subjects.  His comparative analysis of U.S. and Soviet submarine design and construction, COLD WAR SUBMARINES, written in collaboration with Mr. Kenneth J. Moore and the Russian submarine design bureaus RUBIN and MALACHITE, was published in late 2003.

For the past three decades he has been author of the reference books Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet and Guide to the Soviet Navy.  

Mr. Polmar’s articles and comments appear frequently in various newspapers and periodicals and he is a columnist for the Proceedings and Naval History magazines, both published by the U.S. Naval Institute.

From 1967 to 1977 Mr. Polmar was editor of the United States and several other sections of the annual Jane's Fighting Ships.

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