Final voyage for USS Nimitz: Marking the end of an era

In March 2025, USS "Nimitz" (CVN-68) left its home port at Kitsap Bremerton base in Washington state. After taking on Carrier Air Wing 17 and joining escort ships from Destroyer Squadron (DESRON) 9, the ship will be deployed to the Western Pacific.

According to the US Navy, the mission of the aircraft carrier and its accompanying group is to "protect the security, freedom, and prosperity of the United States, its allies, and partners, and demonstrate the unwavering commitment of the US Navy to a free and open Indo-Pacific."

According to the current schedule, this will be the last operational voyage of the "Nimitz." The oldest American aircraft carrier will return in 2026 and be replaced by the new ship USS "John F. Kennedy" (CVN 79).

The "Nimitz" will arrive in Norfolk, Virginia, in April 2026. Until spring 2027, everything that can be reused will be removed. The stripped ship will then be sent to the HII-Newport News Shipbuilding shipyard.

There, the process of deactivating and dismantling the nuclear propulsion system will begin, estimated to last 30 months, preceding the dismantling and scrapping of the hull. Thus, the more than 50-year history of this symbol of the American navy will come to a close.

The USS Nimitz entered service in 1975. It was not the first American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier—that title went to the USS "Enterprise" (CVN-65), which was over a decade older and the only of its type. Only one unit was built, and the experiences gained during the design of the Enterprise allowed for the refinement of the Nimitz's design.

This turned out to be particularly successful. Between 1975 and 2009, 10 Nimitz-class carriers entered service. Since 2017, they have been gradually replaced by the transitional Gerald R. Ford class. The new ships look very similar, with the most visible difference being the slightly narrower and more rearward-shifted superstructure.

As the Nimitz (and previously the USS "Enterprise") is retired, a new type of aircraft carrier is introduced to ensure that the US Navy constantly maintains 11 units of this class. This allows the Pentagon to have 3-4 aircraft carriers in constant readiness, deployed worldwide, factoring in the need for repairs, upgrades, or training.

The number of necessary carriers is often debated, with proposals to limit the number of active ships to 10 and analyses suggesting that expanding the fleet to 12 units may be necessary.

The process of replacing the Nimitz class is extended over time, with the current schedule anticipating the last ship of this type to be decommissioned in 2058.

The USS "Nimitz" is a true floating city. The ship displaces over 110,000 tons and is 1,092 feet long. It is operated by a crew of up to 6,300 people, with infrastructure resembling a small town, including a movie theater, sports facilities, its own media outlets, and a hospital. The scale of the challenges is evident in the organization of the onboard kitchen, which serves more than 18,000 meals daily.

The size of the Nimitz is evident in the dimensions of its superstructure. While the characteristic "island" on the starboard side seems small compared to the entire ship, it stands 151 feet high. It houses command centers responsible for conducting flight operations, operating the ship itself, and directing the actions of the carrier strike group—a team of surface and subsurface units accompanying the aircraft carrier.

Its key asset is the air group, housed in a hangar about 656 feet long. It includes the equivalent of the air forces of a small country, with 70-90 aircraft, more than half of which are combat planes.

The current air group of the USS "Nimitz," formed by Carrier Air Wing 17, consists of nine squadrons: four are equipped with F/A-18E/F Super Hornet aircraft, and one with EA-18G Growler electronic warfare aircraft.

They are complemented by E-2D Advanced Hawkeye early warning aircraft, MH-60 helicopters (a naval variant of the Black Hawk), and C-2A Greyhound carrier onboard delivery aircraft.

The strength of American aircraft carriers lies not just in their size or the number of planes in the hangar, but in their ability to conduct air operations at an intensity unattainable by others.

This is due to the design of American ships, which have four large elevators capable of lifting aircraft up to 66,000 pounds to the deck, and to the organization of deck operations, where different tasks are indicated by different colored uniforms.

Within 10 minutes, a Nimitz-class ship can launch up to 30 planes into the air, and the ship can handle more than 200 flights a day. Gerald R. Ford-class carriers, equipped with electromagnetic catapults, can launch aircraft even faster.

Beyond the power of its air group, an important advantage of the Nimitz-class is its propulsion. Nuclear power permits maintaining a constant, high speed (over 30 knots) and, most importantly, provides the ship with unlimited range. This is critical when the US needs to respond in distant parts of the world—an aircraft carrier can be sent to a volatile region immediately, without needing to refuel first.

The end of service for the first of the Nimitz class comes with many challenges. The scale of these challenges is reflected in the fate of the first American nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS "Enterprise," which was decommissioned in 2012 and formally removed from the fleet in 2017.

Despite the passage of time, the ship has still not been scrapped. Work continues on the procedures for safely deactivating and dismantling its nuclear propulsion. After the reactors are shut down and the fuel is removed, the ship's propulsion will be secured and transported via special train to the Hanford site in Washington state, home to the repository for decommissioned nuclear-powered submarine propulsions - Trench 94.

The same fate awaits the USS "Nimitz," which, due to the procedures developed and tested on the USS "Enterprise," is likely to be dismantled more quickly. The cost of scrapping a single aircraft carrier is estimated to be between $0.5 billion and $1.5 billion.