LOL when I saw that YSR. (Sludge Removal Barge). Enough with the politicians already. As for the Will Rodgers, better a humorist than a politician.
As for CV-67; Intended to be the fourth member of the Kitty Hawk class, when the JFK was commissioned in September of 1968 there were so many modifications made during her construction that the Kennedy was designated a separate class of ship.
When originally laid out, the Kennedy was to be powered by a Westinghouse A3W nuclear reactor, but budget considerations caused the Navy to change the powerplant to a conventional, oil-fired, steam-powered one. Unfortunately, the original ship design did not feature an exhaust gas funnel, so one was engineered in after the fact. This feature is one of the many modifications that distinguished the JFK; unlike the other members of the Kitty Hawk class, who's funnel extends vertically out of the aft portion of the island, the Kennedy's stack is angled out of the right rear corner of the island, which helps to project the exhaust gasses away from the flight deck.
As for myself, the last boat I was on was the USS "Sea Cucumber".
With the Ford class CVN's there are so many technological changes that years ago seemed in the realm of SCI-FI. The primary one being the Steam catapults being replaced with Electromagnetic Launch systems.
The Nimitz-class aircraft carriers use steam-powered catapults to launch aircraft. Steam catapults were developed in the 1950s and have been exceptionally reliable. For over fifty years at least one of the four catapults has been able to launch an aircraft 99.5% of the time. However, there are a number of drawbacks. “The foremost deficiency is that the catapult operates without feedback control. With no feedback, there often occurs large transients in tow force that can damage or reduce the life of the airframe.” The steam system is massive, inefficient (4–6%), and hard to control.
Control problems with the system results in minimum and maximum weight limits. The minimum weight limit is above the weight of all UAVs. An inability to launch the latest additions to the Naval Air Forces is a restriction on operations that cannot continue into the next generation of aircraft carriers. The Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) provides solutions to all these problems. An electromagnetic system is more efficient, smaller, lighter, more powerful, and easier to control. Increased control means that EMALS will be able to launch both heavier and lighter aircraft than the steam catapult. Also, the use of a controlled force will reduce the stress on airframes, resulting in less maintenance and a longer lifetime for the airframe. Unfortunately the power limitations for the Nimitz class make the installation of the recently developed EMALS impossible.
Electromagnetics will also be used in the new Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) system. The current system relies on hydraulics to slow and stop a landing aircraft. While effective, as demonstrated by more than fifty years of implementation, the AAG system offers a number of improvements. The current system is unable to capture UAVs without damaging them due to extreme stresses on the airframe. UAVs do not have the necessary mass to drive the large hydraulic piston used to trap heavier manned planes. By using electromagnetics the energy absorption is controlled by a turbo-electric engine. This makes the trap smoother and reduces shock on airframes. Even though the system will look the same from the flight deck as its predecessor, it will be more flexible, safer, more reliable, and require less maintenance and manning