USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63)

The Kitty Hawk(CV-63) is a conventionally-powered "supercarrier" (exceeding 1000 feet in length and displacing over 76,000 tons) and the lead ship of her class. She served the US Navy from 1961 until 2009. Commissioned in April of 1961 under the command of Captain W.F. Bringle, Kitty Hawk served for just over 48 years before she was decommissioned in May 2009. She is currently laid up at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard as part of the mothball fleet. She is scheduled for disposal in 2015, when she will be replaced by the new USS Gerald R. Ford.

Construction

Kitty Hawk was constructed at the New York Shipbuilding Corporation yard in Camden, New Jersey between December 1956 and May 1960. Because of her tremendous size, it was deemed necessary to float her by flooding her drydock rather than have her slide into the water.

Kitty Hawk measures just under 1,069 feet from bow to stern and 282 feet across the beam. Fully loaded, the carrier displaced over 83,300 tons. With a crew compliment of 5,642 officers and seamen, she is capable of carrying up to 85 aircraft.

The propulsion system consists of four Westinghouse geared steam turbines and eight boilers.

Repairs and Upgrades

After her maiden voyage around Cape Horn, she entered the San Francisco Naval Shipyard in November 1961 for modifications. Kitty Hawk entered the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton Washington for an extensive overhaul in 1965. She was again overhauled in the summer of 1966 following her first Vietnam deployment. A year later, she underwent minor maintenance at Long Beach.

The vessel's next major refits were carried out at the Hunter's Point yard during the first seven months of 1973, during which she was converted from an attack carrier to a general purpose one. Among other changes, her engines were modified to use Navy Distillate Fuel rather than the black oil she had burned before. She was also fitted with new jet blast deflectors and upgraded catapults capable of launching the new Grumman F-14 fighter jet.

Kitty Hawk returned to Bremerton in March 1976, where she was put into drydock for a year-long complex overhaul. This work included extensive upgrades to her aircraft servicing and launch facilities as well as a new missile system.

Her next overhaul kept her at Bremerton for the entirety of 1982. In March 1984, Kitty Hawk entered the US Naval Base at Subic Bay, Philippines to undergo hull repairs resulting from an accident. In 1990, Kitty Hawk underwent a Service Life Extension Program overhaul at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. This was intended to extend her useful service by twenty years.

Following her eighteenth deployment, Kitty Hawk returned to Bremerton a third time in January 1998 for an extensive overhaul and refit that was not completed until the spring of 1999. During her tenure at NS Yokosuka, the carrier underwent maintenance periods in 2006 and 2007.

Wartime Service

Following her shakedown trials, Kitty Hawk sailed from NS Norfolk in August 1961, paying diplomatic calls in South America as she took the long way around Cape Horn on her way to the West Coast (she was too large to pass through the Panama Canal). Initially home ported in San Diego, she got underway from San Francisco in September 1962 for the Far East, where she relieved the USS Midway as flagship for the 7th Fleet. Her six-month stint in Asia ended the following March, and she returned to port in April 1963. Later that year, after a weapons demonstration off the Southern California coast, the carrier served as a set for scenes from the Cold War movie thriller Seven Days in May.

In November 1963, Kitty Hawk was again deployed to the Far East, stationed out of Sasebo, Japan until ordered home the following summer. The carrier made the first of several combat deployments to Vietnam in October 1965, followed by another combat tour starting in November 1966. She returned to San Diego in August 1967.

Kitty Hawk was ordered to Hunter's Point near San Francisco to undergo major alterations and refits in January 1973. The work kept Kitty Hawk in drydock for over four months, and she would not return to San Diego for several months.

During her last half of her life, Kitty Hawk made several deployments to the Far East as well as a circumnavigation of the globe in 1987 and a voyage around Cape Horn during the austral spring of 1991. From 1998 to 2008, the carrier was stationed in Yokosuka, from which she was deployed to the Persian Gulf in addition to participation in joint exercises with other SEATO forces around the Pacific Rim.

Asbestos Risk on the USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63)

Most older Naval ships such as Kitty Hawk had their asbestos removed during overhaul and maintenance periods from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s. Prior to that time however, asbestos exposure was likely to be an issue aboard the carrier particularly when she took damage. In March 1984, Kitty Hawk was involved in a battle exercise with her task group in the Sea of Japan when a Soviet submarine attempted to surface beneath her. The ensuing collision caused one of the submarine's propellers to become embedded in the carrier's hull.

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Sources

N/A. "History." USS Kitty Hawk Veterans Association Website (http://www.kittyhawkvets.com/history.htm). Retrieved 17 December 2010.

NavSource. "USS KITTY HAWK (CVA-63)" (http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/63.htm). Retrieved 17 December 2010.