USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63)

The supercarrier USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63), formerly CVA-63, is the second naval ship named after Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the site of the Wright brothers' first powered airplane flight. Kitty Hawk was both the first and last active ship of her class, and the last oil-fired aircraft carrier in service with the United States Navy.

Kitty Hawk was laid down by the New York Shipbuilding Corporation, Camden, New Jersey, on 27 December 1956. The ship was launched on 21 May 1960, sponsored by Mrs. Camilla F. McElroy, wife of Defense Secretary Neil H. McElroy. Kitty Hawk was launched by flooding her drydock; a conventional slide down ways was ruled out because of her mass and the risk that she might hit the Philadelphia shore on the far side of the Delaware River.

The ship was commissioned 21 April 1961, at Philadelphia Naval Shipyard, Captain William F. Bringle in command.

With the decommissioning of Independence on 30 September 1998, Kitty Hawk became the United States warship with the second-longest active status, after the USS Constitution sailing ship in Boston Harbor. (The Enterprise passed her in 2012; these two aircraft carriers were the two of three to fly the First Navy Jack.)