100,000 t220,000,000 lb
A fully loaded Nimitz-class aircraft carrier weighs about 100,000 tonnes (220 million lb). The exact figure depends on the ship: the Navy’s register lists USS Nimitz at 101,196 long tons (102,820 tonnes) full load and USS Abraham Lincoln at 104,112 long tons. Empty, without fuel, aircraft, crew or stores, a carrier weighs about 80,000 tonnes.
| USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72), full load104,112 long tons, Naval Vessel Register; the heaviest of the class | 106,000 t233,000,000 lb |
|---|---|
| USS Nimitz (CVN 68), full load101,196 long tons, Naval Vessel Register | 103,000 t227,000,000 lb |
| USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77), full load98,235 long tons, Naval Vessel Register; the last ship of the class | 99,800 t220,000,000 lb |
| Class figure in the Navy’s fact file“Approximately 97,000 tons” full load, converted by the Navy as 87,996.9 tonnes | 88,000 t194,000,000 lb |
| USS Nimitz (CVN 68), light (empty)78,280 long tons, without fuel, stores, aircraft or crew | 79,500 t175,000,000 lb |
Ships are not weighed on a scale. Their weight is given as displacement: by Archimedes’ principle, a floating ship pushes aside exactly its own weight in water, so measuring the volume of water below the waterline tells you how heavy the ship is.
The US Navy states displacement in long tons of 2,240 lb (1,016 kg), not metric tonnes of 1,000 kg. A long ton is about 1.6% heavier than a tonne, so 101,196 long tons for USS Nimitz comes to 102,820 tonnes, or about 226.7 million lb. Our figure of 100,000 tonnes (about 98,400 long tons) is a round number for a typical ship of the class at full load.
One more trap: the Navy’s public fact file gave the class as “approximately 97,000 tons” full load and converted that to 87,996.9 tonnes, which treats the figure as US short tons of 2,000 lb. That is well below what the Naval Vessel Register lists for every individual ship, which is why some websites quote a carrier at under 90,000 tonnes.
The class has ten ships, from USS Nimitz, commissioned in 1975, to USS George H.W. Bush, commissioned in 2009. They were designed for a full load of 87,000 long tons (88,400 tonnes), but every ship was delivered several thousand tons heavier. USS Theodore Roosevelt and the ships after it have small structural differences, such as better protection for the magazines.
Ships also gain weight in service as new equipment is added, especially during their mid-life overhaul. USS Abraham Lincoln is listed at 104,112 long tons (105,783 tonnes), the most in the class. Weight does not simply follow age, though: the newest ship, George H.W. Bush, is listed at 98,235 long tons (99,811 tonnes), about 3,000 long tons less than USS Nimitz.
Light displacement is the ship itself with no fuel, ammunition, stores, aircraft or crew aboard. For USS Nimitz that is 78,280 long tons (79,536 tonnes). Full load is the ship ready for war, at 101,196 long tons. The difference, about 22,900 long tons (23,300 tonnes), is everything it carries: jet fuel, bombs and missiles, food, water, the air wing and around 5,000 people.
So roughly three-quarters of a loaded carrier is the ship and its machinery. Even single parts are heavy: each of the four bronze propellers is 25 ft (7.6 m) across and weighs about 66,000 lb (30 tonnes), and each of the two rudders weighs about 110,000 lb (50 tonnes).
Each carrier is driven by two A4W nuclear reactors, which make steam for four turbines and four shafts, for a top speed of over 30 knots. The common claim that the reactors run “over 20 years without refueling” is true but undersells it. The Navy says each ship is designed for about 50 years of service with just a single mid-life refuelling, done during a Refueling and Complex Overhaul (RCOH) at Newport News Shipbuilding.
In practice that refuelling comes at about 25 years. USS Nimitz was refuelled from 1998 to 2001, some 23 years after commissioning, and USS John C. Stennis, commissioned in December 1995, entered its overhaul in May 2021. The work takes about four years and also upgrades the ship to the standard of the newest carriers.
The newer Gerald R. Ford class, a separate design that began with USS Gerald R. Ford in 2017, is about the same size: the Navy lists it at approximately 100,000 long tons (about 101,600 tonnes) full load, with the same 1,092 ft (332.8 m) length and almost 600 fewer crew.
A fully loaded Nimitz-class carrier weighs about 220 million lb. USS Nimitz itself is listed at 101,196 long tons, which is about 226.7 million lb.
About 80,000 tonnes. The Naval Vessel Register gives light displacements of 77,607 long tons for USS George H.W. Bush, 78,280 for USS Nimitz and 81,208 for USS Abraham Lincoln, roughly 78,900 to 82,500 tonnes.
An air wing is usually about 60 to 65 aircraft, though the ships can take 85 to 90. The Navy lists about 3,000 to 3,200 ship’s company, 1,500 in the air wing and 500 others, around 5,000 people in total.
Its two reactors are refuelled once, at mid-life, after roughly 25 years of service. The ship then runs for another 25 years or so on the new cores.
Only slightly, if at all. The Navy lists the Ford class at approximately 100,000 long tons full load, inside the range of the individual Nimitz-class ships.
Last checked October 2, 2026.
