Designing the ship around flexible sortie generation

The flight deck and air group were designed to shift between a concentrated strike and continuous strike, air-defense, or support sorties. Nuclear propulsion freed hull volume that would otherwise hold ship fuel, allowing more aviation fuel and munitions. This concentration explains why so much of the hull is devoted to combustible aviation stores: the space is deliberately reassigned to the air wing rather than left empty. The deck’s required operating area drove the ship’s overall dimensions, while thousands of maintainers, operators, command personnel, and support staff sustained the aviation system under the US Navy’s manpower-intensive damage-control culture.