The retired aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy arrived

Photos courtesy of William E. Rieger III

The retired aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy arrived Saturday, March 22  i n Philadelphia, where it will remain until the Navy decides its fate.

Spectators lined the shore as the 1,050-foot-long ship, which has a 4.6-acre flight deck, was towed slowly up the Delaware River to Pier 4 in South Philadelphia.

The ship, which entered service in 1968, was modernized at a cost of $600 million as the last project of the old Philadelphia Naval Shipyard in the mid-1990s.

USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67), formerly CVA-67, was a supercarrier of the United States Navy. Nicknamed "Big John", she was named after the 35th President of the United States, John F. Kennedy. Kennedy was originally designated a CVA, or strictly an air combat ship; however, the designation was changed to CV to denote that the ship was capable of anti-submarine warfare (ASW), making her an all-purpose carrier.

Kennedy held her decommissioning ceremony on March 23, 2007 at Mayport, Florida. 18 months short of 40 years service in the United States Navy. She was officially decommissioned on August 1, 2007 ^[1] leaving the USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) as the US Navy's only conventionally-powered carrier remaining in commission.

The ship's keel was laid on October 22, 1964. She was christened May 27, 1967 by Jacqueline Kennedy and her 9-year-old daughter, Caroline at Newport News, Virginia, and entered service September 7, 1968. John F. Kennedy is a modified version of the earlier Kitty Hawk-class aircraft carriers but there are enough differences in the Kennedy that the Navy considers her in a single-class of her own. Kennedy was ordered as a nuclear carrier, using the A3W reactor, but converted to conventional propulsion after construction had begun. The island is somewhat different from the Kitty Hawk class, with angled funnels to direct smoke and gases away from the flight deck.   Source Wikepedia