Photo Release -- Northrop Grumman's Newest Aircraft Carrier Takes a Bow

[Supe]

Spotted on another site but definitely worth a repost here.

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. - March 15, 2006 - The nation's tenth and final Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, George H. W. Bush (CVN 77), grew by nearly 800 tons today as Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE: NOC) lowered the upper bow section of the ship into place. The addition of the upper bow completes the flight deck and extends the overall length of the carrier to its full size, which is as long as the Empire State Building is tall.

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source

The George H. W. Bush's keel was laid Sept. 6, 2003. The christening will occur in October 2006 with delivery to the U.S. Navy in late 2008.

A staggered timetable? Any idea on how quickly one of these could be built and commissioned if pressed?

Impressive stuff. The site has hires pics of the bow being fitted as well as a wmv file.

 

[amatsunz]

Great Pics of what is going to be a great boat, dunno about the name though, think Saratoga or Lexington would have been better!
I notice that in one of the pics the Island structure is lying on the side of the dry dock. It looks ALOT like the island on the Ronald Reagan, which surprised me because in the early artists drawings cvn-77 had a different island with phased arrays, does anybody know if that was dropped (maybe time slips with the new radars for ddx) or weather it was always the intention to have a more conventional island, and the artist imagination just took flight?

 

[Magoo]

Great Pics of what is going to be a great boat, dunno about the name though, think Saratoga or Lexington would have been better!
I notice that in one of the pics the Island structure is lying on the side of the dry dock. It looks ALOT like the island on the Ronald Reagan, which surprised me because in the early artists drawings cvn-77 had a different island with phased arrays, does anybody know if that was dropped (maybe time slips with the new radars for ddx) or weather it was always the intention to have a more conventional island, and the artist imagination just took flight?

I agree that there were probably thousands of better names they could have chosen for the boat!

CVN-77 was originally meant to be the transition ship between the Nimitz class and the next gen CV-X, and in many ways (under the surface) this will still be true. Although the ship is still built around a more-or-less standard Nimitz class hull, deck and island, many of the internal systems will be far more advanced than on earlier Nimitz ships.

CVN-78 will likely be the next stage of the transition, and may feature a more advanced hull, island and flight deck design.

Magoo