THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 9, 1995 TAG: 9510070031
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
I WATCHED FROM the bridge-tunnel over Chesapeake Bay last week as the Navy's newest nuclear-powered aircraft carrier plowed through the channel like a floating airport, towering 20 stories above her waterline.
The Navy was taking the USS John C. Stennis out for sea trials.
It was a hazy autumn morning. The Stennis' 60,000 tons of steel carved a long wake as she grew smaller and smaller in the distance. After steaming into the Atlantic's sunlit haze, the mammoth carrier looked like a large gray bowl in the distance. Her superstructure rose from the bowl like - or so it seemed - a spoon. Really.
Built by Newport News Shipbuilding at a cost of more than $3 billion, the monster carrier fits that surreal description. Any country looking for trouble with the U.S. will find that the Stennis can serve it up.
President Clinton made an apt observation a couple of years ago while aboard a carrier of the Stennis' Nimitz class.
``When word of a crisis breaks out in Washington, it's no accident that the first question that comes to everyone's lips is: `Where is the newest carrier?' ''
I was so impressed with the Stennis - and that goes for all the Navy's floating airports - that I've tried to assemble some facts and information for my own education, borrowing from the knowledge of our military writer Jack Dorsey.
Adm. Frank B. Kelso II, the former chief of naval operations had this to say about the carrier: ``It's a little bit of America. You put in a hundred miles from 70 percent of the world's population in international waters whenever you need to.''
(The Norfolk-based carrier USS America is in the Adriatic helping to keep the fragile peace in Bosnia.)
Here are some facts about the Stennis:
She can carry more than 80 war planes on a 4.5-acre flight deck.
A self-contained city, she will have a crew of nearly 3,000.
She contains more than 900 miles of cable and wiring.
She is almost as long as the Empire State Building is tall - nearly 1,100 feet long.
She has four aircraft elevators.
She carries four bronze propellers, each 21 feet across, weighing 66,200 pounds.
She houses 2,082 feet of anchor chain, with each of the 684 links weighing 365 pounds, and two anchors, each weighing 30 tons.
Her distillation plant provides more than 400,000 gallons daily, enough to supply more than 4,000 tons.
Her cooking staff can supply 18,150 meals daily.
She contains nearly 30,000 light fixtures.
She will have 14,000 pillowcases and 28,000 sheets.
She contains 2,000 telephones, 100,000 rolls of toilet paper, 600,000 ballpoint pens and 1.5 million sheets of paper.
The new carrier is named for one of the Navy's best friends, the former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The courtly Mississippian believed the U.S. Navy should always be second to none. And he was an early and unrelenting advocate of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.
``There is nothing that compares with it when it comes to deterrence,'' he said. ``Nothing this side of all-out nuclear war.''
He got that right. And so did Clinton. When Uncle Sam wants to roll up his sleeves and show his biceps, he calls for carriers almost every time. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Martin Smith-Rodden
The USS Stennis is as long as the Empire State Building is tall -
nearly 1,100 feet long.
by CNB