THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 19, 1995 TAG: 9507190440
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHRISTOPHER DINSMORE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 57 lines
Just back from its groundbreaking cruise with a mixed-gender crew, the aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower entered Newport News Shipbuilding for an 18-month overhaul.
Up to 3,000 of the Peninsula shipyard's employees will work on the $404 million job at its peak, said spokeswoman Jerri Dyckseski. The carrier arrived at the yard Monday.
The job is crucial to sustain employment at the giant shipyard. Newport News Shipbuilding is the state's largest employer with 19,500 workers. In response to falling defense spending, the shipyard aims to trim its payroll to under 15,000 by the end of next year.
Those plans haven't changed despite contracts to build commercial petroleum tankers and the addition of the Eisenhower to the shipyard's backlog of work, which now stands at about $5 billion.
The work will entail upgrades to the Eisenhower's two nuclear reactors and repairs to its propulsion and combat systems, its elevators and catapults. The carrier will be drydocked nine months for propeller, shaft and rudder work, and hull repainting.
Newport News Shipbuilding built the Eisenhower in the 1970s at its sprawling facility on the banks of the James River in downtown Newport News.
Delivered in 1977, the carrier known as the Ike has since served in the Navy's Atlantic fleet. When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, it was the first U.S. carrier to move within striking distance after a marathon steam across the Mediterranean Sea and through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea.
In May, it completed the first cruise of a Navy combatant vessel with women making up about 10 percent of the warship's crew of 5,500. The Navy said the cruise was a success.
After work on the Eisenhower is finished, the yard expects to get a contract for a similar overhaul of the carrier Theodore Roosevelt. Planning for that job, scheduled to begin in two years, has already begun.
Newport News Shipbuilding just completed a $2.5 billion, four-year overhaul and refueling of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Enterprise. That contract involved nearly 5,000 of the yard's workers at its peak.
The carrier Nimitz is scheduled to arrive at the shipyard in 1998 to refuel its nuclear reactors. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
PAUL AIKEN/Staff
The aircraft carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower has served in the Navy's
Atlantic fleet since it was delivered by Newport News Shipbuilding
in 1977. In May, the Ike completed the first cruise of a Navy
combatant vessel with women making up about 10 percent of the
warship's crew of 5,500.
by CNB