USS Carl Vinson underway in the Pacific Ocean.
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History | |
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United States | |
Name: | USS Carl Vinson |
Namesake: | Carl Vinson |
Ordered: | 5 April 1974 |
Builder: | Newport News Shipbuilding |
Laid down: | 11 October 1975 |
Launched: | 15 March 1980 |
Commissioned: | 13 March 1982 |
Homeport: | NAS North Island San Diego, California |
Motto: |
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Status: | in active service |
Badge: | |
General characteristics | |
Class and type: | Nimitz-class aircraft carrier |
Displacement: | 101,300 long tons (113,500 short tons) |
Length: |
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Beam: |
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Draft: |
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Propulsion: |
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Speed: | 30+ knots (56+ km/h; 35+ mph) |
Range: | Unlimited distance; 20–25 years |
Complement: |
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Crew: | 6,062 |
Sensors and processing systems: |
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Electronic warfare & decoys: |
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Armament: |
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Armor: | Unknown |
Aircraft carried: | 90 fixed wing and helicopters |
USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) is the third United States Navy Nimitz-class supercarrier and is named after Carl Vinson, a Congressman from Georgia, in recognition of his contributions to the US Navy. The ship was launched in 1980, undertook its maiden voyage in 1983, and underwent Refueling and Overhaul between 2005 and 2009. Carl Vinson's callsign is "Gold Eagle".
Besides deployments in Operation Desert Strike, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Southern Watch, and Operation Enduring Freedom, the Carl Vinson was involved in a number of notable events. The body of Osama bin Laden was buried at sea in 2011 from the deck of the Carl Vinson, and that same year, on Veterans Day, it played host to the first NCAA basketball game on an aircraft carrier, between North Carolina and Michigan State.
A member of the United States House of Representatives for fifty years, Carl Vinson was, for twenty-nine years, the Chairman of the House Naval Affairs and Armed Services Committee; Vinson was the principal sponsor of the so-called "Vinson Acts," culminating in the Two-Ocean Navy Act of 1940, which provided for the massive Naval shipbuilding effort in World War II.