[R. Scott]

If anyone wants to be truly impressed, visit Newport News. Go downtown to the shipyard area and look at a carrier under construction or refit – the tallest building in Newport News is any carrier in the shipyard. These ships are truly huge, but they don’t look all that big until you get within a few blocks of the shipyard.

[magslinger]

If anyone wants to be truly impressed, visit Newport News. Go downtown to the shipyard area and look at a carrier under construction or refit – the tallest building in Newport News is any carrier in the shipyard. These ships are truly huge, but they don’t look all that big until you get within a few blocks of the shipyard.

It's all perspective. A carrier looks positively tiny when seen from the back window of a C-2 circling around to land (crash?) on board.

[MarkL]

If anyone wants to be truly impressed, visit Newport News. Go downtown to the shipyard area and look at a carrier under construction or refit – the tallest building in Newport News is any carrier in the shipyard. These ships are truly huge, but they don’t look all that big until you get within a few blocks of the shipyard.

Before the air museum was opened on the Intrepid, I took a tour of it, and there was a display with a scale model of the Intrepid next to the Nimitz. After having walked around the flight and hanger decks, and being being amazed at what a huge ship that was, I was shocked to see how the newer CVNs just dwarfed the Intrepid.

Someday, now that there's a museum there, I'd love to go back. I heard that there's another warship there too, as well as a Russian submarine.

Mark