Improved Forrestal Carriers
The biggest differences from the Forrestals are greater length, and a different placement of elevators; two are forward of the island, one is aft of the island and another on the portside stern. The movement of the #4 elevator from the forward to the after end of the angle made it useful for aircraft movement, since the forward-end elevator was useless as it was in both the landing path and in the launch path of the #3 and #4 catapults.
Three different shipyards were used to construct the ships. Kitty Hawk was built at New York Shipbuilding Corporation, Constellation at New York Naval Shipyard, America and John F. Kennedy at Newport News Shipbuilding. John F. Kennedy is similar to the earlier units in flightdeck arrangement and propulsion, but has enough differences that she is often placed in her own class. Propulsion consisted of four Westinghouse geared turbines, 280,000 shp, four shafts with eight 1,200 pounds per square inch (8,300 kPa) Foster Wheeler boilers.
Read more about this topic: Kitty Hawk-class Aircraft Carrier
Famous quotes containing the words improved and/or carriers:
“While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Now, the wry Rosenbloom is dead
And his finical carriers tread,
On a hundred legs, the tread
Of the dead.
Rosenbloom is dead.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)