USS Enterprise CVN65 - photos

 

Task Force 1, the first nuclear-powered task force. Enterprise, Long Beach and Bainbridge in formation in the Mediterranean, 18 June 1964. Enterprise has Einstein's mass–energy equivalence formula E=mc² spelled out on its flight deck. Note the distinctive phased array radars in the superstructures of Enterprise and Long Beach.

USS Enterprise (CVN-65), formerly CVA(N)-65, is a decommissioned^[14] United States Navy aircraft carrier. She was the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and the eighth United States naval vessel to bear the name. Like her predecessor of World War II fame, she is nicknamed "Big E". At 1,123 feet (342 m),^[6][7] she is the longest naval vessel ever built. Enterprise is the only ship of a class that was originally planned to have five other ships. Her 93,284-long-ton (94,781 t)^[5] displacement ranks her class as the third-heaviest carrier class, after the Nimitz class and the Gerald R. Ford class. Enterprise had a crew of some 4,600 service members.^[8]

Enterprise^[15] was, at the time of inactivation, the third-oldest commissioned vessel in the United States Navy after the wooden-hulled USS Constitution and USS Pueblo.^[16] She was inactivated on 1 December 2012,^[17] and officially decommissioned on 3 February 2017,^[18][19] after over 55 years of service.^[20][21] She was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register the same day.^[22]

The name has been adopted by the future Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN-80)