The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) has completed her four-year refueling and complex overhaul (RCOH), a one-time maintenance period that includes more than 20 million man-hours of work, extensive modernization work on more than 2,300 compartments, and upgrades to hundreds of systems.
All this work and planning culminates in four days at sea testing the ship’s systems before she is redelivered to the U.S. Navy.
The sea trials, conducted by the U.S. Navy alongside NNS shipbuilders onboard, tested the carrier’s systems and operations at sea, including high-speed operations. The trials team put the ship through a series of tests designed to prove system performance and demonstrate all the carrier’s capabilities at sea.
The RCOH process is performed only once during the ship’s 50-year lifetime and involves upgrades to nearly every space and system on the ship. Tanks, the hull, shafting, propellers, rudders, piping, ventilation, electrical, combat and aviation support systems were repaired, upgraded and modernized. Work also included defueling and refueling the ship’s two nuclear reactors and repairs and upgrades to the propulsion plant.
[mappress] Shipbuilding Tribune Staff, October 11, 2013; Video: HuntingtonIngalls