USS Enterprise (CVN 65)
The Shuttle Newsletter Edition
“We are Legend”
April 7, 2012 Issue
Purple Shirts: Below the Flight Deck Story and photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Gregory White
USS ENTERPRISE, At sea - The color purple stands out against the white, haze gray, blue, white, brass, copper, and steel that fill much of the interior of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN 65). Purple is used to identify all things fuel, from the pumps and pipes, to the personnel of Air department’s fuels division, or V-4, which is split up into two categories: Flight deck personnel and below-deck personnel. While many are familiar with the role of V-4’s flight deck personnel, not quite as many are aware of what goes on below the flight deck. The primary goal of these below-deck Sailors is to deliver clean and quality fuel to aircraft and other service equipment aboard Enterprise. “In below decks, we’re in charge of cleaning up any dirty fuel and getting it ready for the guys topside,” said Aviation Boatswain’s Mate 3rd Class Larry E. Dye, a JP-5 pump room supervisor aboard Enterprise. “We have to make sure there is no water or sediment in the fuel that we give the aircraft.” Aviation Boatswain’s Mate (Fuel) Airman Nicholas A. Smith checks a fuel sample Dye said it is important to deliver clean fuel for water and sediment aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise (CVN 65). because sediment can clog an aircraft’s engine and water can freeze at high altitudes, also causing damage to an elements fail, there is a small manhole cover on the filter tank aircraft. that can be removed in order to render repairs. “Whenever we take on fuel from a supply ship, that fuel “A very small person would have to climb into the tank and goes down to our JP-5 storage tanks,” said Chief Aviation remove the elements for repair,” said Smith. Boatswain’s Mate (Fuel) Troy A. Nichols. Personnel in the filter rooms are required to manually check There are 192 fuel tanks aboard “Big E.” Sixteen of those samples of the fuel every fifteen minutes to ensure no foreign tanks are service tanks. The rest are storage tanks. debris has gotten into it. They take visuals and log them. Fuel is moved from storage tanks to the JP-5 pump rooms Each filter pumps over 2,000 gallons of fuel per minute. where it is stripped of water and sediment and run through a They are the last point fuel passes through before being pushed JP-5 purifier. up to the flight deck to fuel aircraft. Bad fuel containing “The purifier spins really fast,” said Dye. “It uses centripetal sediment and water that is caught by the filter goes to the sump force to separate sediment and water from the fuel by spreading tank. From there it is moved into a contamination tank. All fuel it to the outside walls.” is reclaimed and everything else is properly disposed of. After purification, fuel is pushed from the pump room to With responsibilities in 192 tanks, two pump rooms, 10 one of four JP-5 filters. The filters use elements to filter out any reactor spaces, and seven shaft alleys, among others, V-4’s really small particles that may have been passed through the below decks personnel get around the ship and have to be purifier. familiar with the location of all of their equipment, pipes, and “The filter gets rid of any water or sediment that may still be valves. They use a Human Machine Interface (HMI), a diagram in the fuel when it gets here (to the filter room),” said Aviation of the entire fuels system, to locate what tanks are full and Boatswain’s Mate Airman Nicholas A. Smith, a filter room which are empty, as well as which ones to turn off and on. operator. “If anything gets past here, the filter is not doing its “Enterprise is the last aircraft carrier to contain a job.” conventional style fuel system,” said Nichols. “That means that Smith said that the filter uses two types of elements called a every valve we have on our tanks, our manifolds, in our pump “coalescer element” and a “separatory element.” If any of the FUEL continued on page 3