MARINE CORPS RECRUIT DEPOT SAN DIEGO, Calif. -- To make any budding metropolitan city work several different elements are needed. An airport, shopping centers, a television news network, police officers and a jail, a place for eating, a library and mainly an area of land to designate the boundaries.
Take away the land and confine the residents to a ship floating at sea with a very specific goal, to work as one team providing the United States with an incredibly potent, flexible, and mobile force and what remains is a United States aircraft carrier.
The USS Nimitz comes from the Nimitz class carriers and has several interesting tidbits about it.
*The USS Nimitz took four years to construct and was commissioned on May 3, 1975.
*The ship stretches over 1,000 feet in length and over 250 feet in width with a flight deck covering approximately four and one half acres.
*The ship is powered by two nuclear power plants that run four main engines.
*The ship can travel at speeds upward of 30 knots.
*There are four propellers with four blades on each.
*The ship has four aircraft elevators.
*The ship has four catapults and four arresting gear cables.
*The ship displaces about 95,000 tons with a full load.
*The ship can accommodate about 6,000 people.
*Between 18,000 and 20,000 meals are served each day.
*Four distilling units make approximately 400,000 gallons of fresh water each day.
*The ship can store up to 70 days worth of food.
*The use of nuclear power allows the ship to store up to 50 percent more ammunition and almost twice as much aviation fuel as the largest conventional aircraft carrier.