Carriers: Towns Afloat
1910 AD
1910 1910
45.00W35.00N
SCI

ATLANTIC OCEAN
	Imagine a town of 6,000 people floating in the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean and you will have a feeling for the size of a modern nuclear aircraft carrier.
	One carrier captain compared sailing one of these ships to steering New York's Central Park from the top of the Empire State Building.
	The new Nimitz class ships, named after United States Admiral Chester Nimitz, of World War II fame, are three football fields long, have a crew of 6,000, two nuclear reactors, provisions for 90 days, 100 airplanes and a range of 800,000 miles -- that's about 13 years without refueling.
	The first carrier was not nearly so grand.  It was the USS Birmingham, a cruiser to which Ely Chambers, the officer in charge of the US Navy's naval aviation, had added a short flight deck.  The first plane took off from the cruiser on November 14, 1910.
	The first nuclear aircraft carrier was the USS Enterprise, with eight reactors.  For a time, it was the largest ship afloat.