TOURING USS GEORGE WASHINGTON

TOURING USS GEORGE WASHINGTON One of the world s most powerful ships projects The Spirit of Freedom By Richard H. Wagner (Originally published in The Log, Navy League of the United States, New York Council, Fall 2006) Several Navy League members organized a trip to Norfolk, Virginia in early September, in which more than 40 people participated. A highlight of this journey, which also included a display by the Blue Angels the Navy's flight demonstration team at NAS Oceana, was a tour of the USS GEORGE WASHINGTON (CVN 73) at the Navy base T he current USS GEORGE WASHINGTON is the fourth Navy ship to bear the full name of the nation's first president. (There have also been six American fighting ships just called WASHINGTON that were named after the President, and two warships named WASHINGTON, including the famous battleship (BB 56), that were named after the State, which, of course, was named after the man). The first GEORGE WASHINGTON was built as a merchant ship but purchased by the government in 1798 for use as a warship in the undeclared war with France. After serving in that conflict, she became the first American warship to enter the Mediterranean Sea. She was sold in 1802. More than a century later, the Navy acquired the second GEORGE WASHINGTON, a 25,570 gross ton, German ocean liner that had been interned in New York at the beginning of the First World War. GEORGE WASHINGTON was the original name given to the ship by her German owners reflecting the fact that she was designed to take passengers from Germany to the United States. When the United States entered the war in 1917, the GEORGE WASHINGTON was seized and pressed into service as a fast troop transport. Following the war, she carried President Woodrow Wilson to the Versailles peace conference. In another voyage, she carried Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Roosevelt to France. In 1921, she was turned over to the company that would become the United States Lines and was in the transatlantic service until 1931. When war clouds again appeared on the horizon, she was reacquired by the Navy and commissioned as CATLIN (AP-19). However, when she was lent to the Royal Navy, she reverted to her original name. She performed troop transport duties for the British and the Americans throughout the war including carrying troops for the Normandy invasion. Taken out of service in 1947, she was scrapped after a fire severely damaged her in 1951. The third GEORGE WASHINGTON (SSBN 598) was a nuclear submarine originally commissioned as SCORPION (SSN 589) but re-commissioned and re-named

in 1959 following the addition of a 130- foot missile section. This ship made history on 20 July 1960 when she became the first submerged submarine to successfully launch a Polaris missile. Following numerous Cold War patrols, she was decommissioned on 24 January 1985 and disposed of by submarine recycling on 30 September 1998. USS GEORGE WASHINGTON (CVN 73) in Norfolk, Virginia. (Photo: R. H. Wagner). Construction began in 1986 on the current GEORGE WASHINGTON at Newport News Shipbuilding Co., Newport News, VA., and she was commissioned July 4, 1992. During her maiden deployment in 1994, the ship represented the United States in the international flotilla that commemorated the 50th anniversary of D-Day. Her second deployment in 1996 saw her doing peacekeeping in Bosnia/Herzegovina and enforcing the No-fly Zone over southern Iraq. Her next two deployments (1997-98 and 2000) again brought her to the Gulf region as the cornerstone of the U.S. military presence in that area. On 11 September 2001, GEORGE WASHINGTON was in Norfolk. Following the attacks upon New York and Washington, she immediately took up position patrolling off New York harbor and off the coast of Long Island within sight of land. The ship's visible presence and the patrols by her air group in the days following gave comfort to the still dazed population. From June to December 2002, the GEORGE WASHINGTON took the war home to Al Qaeda and its Taliban supporters by launching air attacks against targets in Afghanistan. These missions demonstrated that even landlocked countries far from the sea are within the reach of a carrier air group. In her most recent deployment, June to December 2004, GEORGE WASHINGTON provided air support for U.S. troops in Iraq. The air group conducted more than 7,500 sorties, 1,500 of which were directly engaged in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Since returning home, GEORGE WASHINGTON has engaged primarily in training such as qualifying pilots for carrier landings and exercising in the Caribbean with ships from various allied countries. When we visited her, she was preparing to be wrapped in electric cables so as to reduce the magnetism in her steel and thus become less vulnerable to magnetic mines. Shortly thereafter, she will begin an elevenmonth period in the shipyard primarily to do combat systems upgrades in preparation for her move to Yokosuka, Japan in the Spring of 2008, when she will replace USS KITTY HAWK (CV 63) as the forward deployed carrier. GEORGE WASHINGTON is the sixth NIMITZ-class aircraft carrier. This 2

class is the second generation of nuclear carriers and was originally envisioned as being similar in design to the first generation: USS ENTERPRISE (CVN 65). However, nuclear technology had advanced considerably since the time ENTERPRISE was built and it was found that the new class only needed two reactors to produce the same power as the eight used on ENTERPRISE. This meant that in a hull of similar size there would be about 20 percent more room to carry aviation fuel, munitions, and general stores, making these ships' operational ability less dependent on the need to replenish supplies. In addition, the new ships' reactors would have to be refueled less often than the ENTERPRISE reactors - -every 13 to 15 years, roughly three times during these carriers' expected lifespan. The reactors create steam that is used in steam turbines to drive the ship and fulfill the ship's other demands for power. The NIMITZ-class carriers are designed to take considerably more punishment than the World War II-era aircraft carriers which they replaced. The hull and decks are made of 60,000 tons of high tensile steel with numerous longitudinal divides as well as 23 transverse bulkheads and 10 firewall bulkheads. There are 3,360 compartments on GEORGE WASHINGTON. As one of the second group of NIMITZ-class carriers (CVN 71 on), GEORGE WASHINGTON has better hull protection than the early NIMITZ-class ships as well as Kevlar armor plate over the vital compartments. Each of the NIMITZ-class carriers cost approximately $4.5 billion to build. The high cost of building the first generation carrier was the reason only one ship of that class was built and is a major reason why there was a long gap between ENTERPRISE and USS NIMITZ (CVN 68). High building costs also led President Jimmy Carter to attempt unsuccessfully to block the delivery of the fourth NIMITZ-class carrier (USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT (CVN 71)). His successor, President Ronald Reagan, gave the go-ahead for the remaining ships of the class. He realized that over a ship's lifetime the cost of a nuclear carrier is similar to a conventional carrier but that a nuclear carrier is a more formidable weapon because it can carry much more aviation fuel, ammunition, and supplies than a conventional carrier of similar size and does not have to be refueled anywhere near as often. GEORGE WASHINGTON's vital statistics are impressive. She is 244 feet high, 1,092 feet long, with a beam of 134 feet spreading out to a width of 252 feet at the flight deck. Her displacement is approximately 100,000 tons (full load) and her draught is about 39 feet. Four propellers, each 22 feet across and weighing 66,200 pounds, can push her along at more than 30 knots. The GEORGE WASHINGTON is a veritable city at sea and it would take more than a morning tour to see all of her. Accordingly, our tour focused on areas critical to two key functions - - driving the ship and air operations. Driving the ship is done from the bridge located high on the island. It is not a big area but it is not as crowded as on USS KEARSARGE (LHD 3) (See The Log, Summer 2006, at p. 30) or on 3

some smaller warships. On the port side is the captain's chair and that half of the bridge is considered his territory. The officer of the deck, the junior officer of the watch, and the conning officer who tells the helmsmen what to do, are usually found here. On the starboard side is the navigator's chair. There is the chart table and the navigational radar. While GEORGE WASHINGTON is equipped with computerized navigational systems, paper charts are still relied upon as definitive. Also towards the back is a small area with the ship's operational radar. Here, the ship can track other ships in the vicinity. Another small room with large glass windows juts out from the starboard side of the island. This area is used when the ship is docking or when another ship is coming along side to replenish supplies. The ship always docks along her starboard side and ships coming along side always approach from starboard. It juts out in order to give the captain a better perspective as to relative location of the ship and the pier. A small wheel steers the great ship. (Photo: R.H. Wagner). The ship's wheel is located toward the back of the bridge. It is a small wooden wheel that looks like it was commandeered from a 1930s movie star's yacht. However, it is not connected to the rudders by oldfashioned mechanical cables. Rather, it is connected electrically. On either side of the wheel are two large touch-screen computer displays which the helmsmen can use to control the ship. If one screen "goes down", the ship can be controlled from the other screen. Lower down in the island is a small room that is the domain of the aircraft handler. The flight deck of an aircraft carrier is a dangerous place. With numerous jets, helicopters, and propeller planes launching and landing within a relatively small area and with still other aircraft being armed and maintained by a legion of ground crew, there is significant potential for an accident. In addition, some sort of order must be maintained in order to allow the ship to launch and land aircraft. Therefore, someone must control the movement of the aircraft on the flight deck and in the hanger deck. The central feature of the handler's room is decidedly low tech. It is a table the top of which is marked with a diagram of the flight deck. On a shelf immediately below that level is a diagram of the hanger deck. Small brightly-colored, wooden, scale models of various types of aircraft are placed on the diagrams. These models are used to show the location of the aircraft onboard. When an aircraft is moved, the model that represents that aircraft is 4

moved by hand to the location where the aircraft has moved. Thus, if an F/A-18 is moved to the forward port catapult from being parked near the island, the model representing that aircraft is moved along the table to the corresponding location on the diagram. There are several ways to determine the location of the aircraft on the flight deck. First, there is a large window looking out at the flight deck. On the opposite wall, is a large flat panel television that shows the flight deck. Third, there is a spotter high up in the island whose job it is to communicate movements to the handler. Finally, the "yellow shirts" who handle the aircraft on deck have radios built into their head gear that allow them to tell the handler that they are moving a particular aircraft. The precise location of an aircraft is determined by reference to various landmarks that have been established in the deck. Not only do the models tell the location of the various aircraft, they also show their condition. A model with a wing nut placed on top of it means that the aircraft has its wings folded. A model with a washer on top of it means that the aircraft needs to be washed. Low tech, but effective. In fact, even though computerized systems are being developed, the prediction on the GEORGE WASHINGTON was that the handlers will still want to have their table even when the new systems are deployed because the old way is not vulnerable to such things as software errors or computer crashes. The immense flight deck looks like a postage stamp from the air. (Photo: R.H. Wagner The flight deck of the GEORGE WASHINGTON encompasses some 4.5 acres and looks immense when one is walking across it. However, pilots who have several thousand feet to land at a shore side airport, have only 300 feet here. To that end, there are four arresting wires deployed across the rear of the flight deck. Approaching aircraft aim for the third wire. They do not aim for the wires closer to the stern because to do so would increase the chances of crashing into the stern. The aircraft are landed at full power at between 150 to 200 knots in case they miss the wires and have to take off again over the angled portion of the flight deck. A miss is known as a "bolter" and subjects the unlucky pilot to the razing of his squadron mates until another pilot has a bolter. The arresting wires are set for each individual aircraft. Thus, the tension of the wires is set based upon the type of aircraft that is landing, the amount of fuel it is carrying, and whether it is carrying its bombs and missiles. When the aircraft snags a wire with its tail hook the wire plays out and 5

stops the aircraft just short of the waist catapults. Stopping the aircraft too abruptly would damage the aircraft. The landing signal officer (LSO) stands on a platform on the port side of the ship and helps guide the aircraft in by radio. If it looks like a crash is about to happen, there are nets rigged below his platform for him to dive into. The pilot is also guided by the "meatball" a device with series of lenses that tells the pilot whether he is too high or low etc. It is located forward of the LSO's station. The pilots are also guided by the lines drawn on the flight deck. If a crash is likely, a crash barrier can also be rigged across the deck near the fourth arresting wire. The GEORGE WASHINGTON keeps an old F-18 airframe onboard that is used inter alia for training the crew for such situations. They roll it across the deck into the barrier and then simulate rescuing the pilot from the tangled plane under various conditions such as a fire. There are four catapults on GEORGE WASHINGTON, two are forward and two are on the angle. As a result, she can launch aircraft from her bow catapults while recovering aircraft on the angled portion of the flight deck. Because the two bow catapults are angled slightly inwards, both catapults can not be fired exactly at the same time. However, they can be fired one after the other so that aircraft can be launched from the bow at one minute intervals. The ship can also launch two aircraft simultaneously by launching one from the bow and one from the waist catapults. All four catapults are used in normal flight operations. Our tour next took us inside where the aircraft are controlled. The air boss, the CDC officer, and the strike officer coordinate to determine what missions need to be done and what is needed to accomplish those missions. The air controllers guide the aircraft from when they leave the ship until they return. Once an aircraft is launched, the approach controllers guide the aircraft until they are fifty miles from the ship. After reaching that point, the strike controllers take over until the aircraft are over land where they are handed off to controllers on the ground (unless, of course, it is hostile territory, in which case, the planes remain with strike control or receive airborne guidance from E-2 Hawkeyes). On return, the aircraft are guided by the strike controllers until they reach 50 miles from the ship, then by approach control, and in the last three quarters of a mile by the LSO. The first room we visited was devoted to communications. The controllers sit in front of computer consoles with large flat panel screens hanging above them. Displayed on the screens is information from the Integrated Shipboard Information System listing items about the aircraft such the amount of fuel remaining and what mission it is assigned to do. If, for example, the aircraft is low on fuel, these controllers can dispatch a tanker to do a midair refueling of that aircraft. The approach room was similar in set-up with large flat panel screens hanging over the computer consoles. At the back of the room sits the watch officer who is in charge. A supervising controller stands amongst the consoles 6

so as to be able to talk to all of the controllers. After a launch, the departure controller talks to the pilot and separates it from the other aircraft by altitude, distance, or by any other factor he deems appropriate and controls the aircraft until they are handed off to strike control. When the aircraft are returning to the ship, they speak first with the marshalling controller who gives the aircraft holding positions. Normally, the interval is between 60 and 80 seconds. When the aircraft leave the holding pattern, usually at 21 miles from the ship, they speak with an approach controller who puts them on a final bearing to the flight deck. At eight miles, a final approach controller takes over, giving the aircraft precise guidance to get them down to the deck. As noted earlier, at three quarters of a mile, the LSO takes over. The computer in the approach control is actually capable of landing the aircraft by itself. It speaks with the computer on the aircraft and the pilot can take his or her hands off the controls and just enjoy the ride. The computer takes into account weather and sea conditions and is capable of recovering aircraft even under bad conditions. This system allows the ship to recover aircraft at night with the ship completely blacked-out and in other low visibility situations, or in emergency situations where the pilot has been injured, or when the pilot is returning fatigued from a long difficult mission. Most pilots, however, opt not to use this system because they want to keep their skills honed and their carrier landing qualification current. Our tour ended in the cavernous hangar deck. When the ship returns from deployment, the air wing flies off and lands on shore, usually at NAS Oceana. As a result, the hangar deck was empty. Although the hangar deck is huge (684 feet by 108 feet and 26.5 feet high), it cannot store the entire air wing, which can range up to 80 aircraft. Consequently, some of the aircraft are stored on the flight deck even in bad weather conditions. Thus, the hangar deck's primary function is the repair and maintenance of the aircraft. On her last deployment, GEORGE WASHINGTON carried F/A-18 Hornets, F/A-18E/F Superhornets, EA- 6B Prowlers, S-3B Vikings, and E-2 Hawkeyes as well as helicopters. The GEORGE WASHINGTON is an impressive ship. This is not just because of her colossal size, her ability to perform complex tasks, or the power that she can project. It is also because of the dedication and enthusiasm of each of the young men and women that we spoke with. These sailors perform difficult tasks under difficult conditions and receive little thanks. Still, they appear sincerely to believe that their ship embodies her motto: "The Sprit of Freedom." 7