The roar, heat and vibration of powerful jet engines before an aircraft launches from an aircraft carrier can excite anyone, it seems.  None of that would be possible without one thing… fuel.

The Sailors in charge of handling and managing the fuel carried on board USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) work in the ship’s V-4 division.  Fuel is constantly being transferred, moved and purified throughout the ship, which is no easy task.

“The junior Sailors in our division, such as airmen and third classes have a lot more responsibility than in other divisions,” said Chief Aviation Boatswain Mate (Fuels) James Dignan.  “They have an awesome amount of power with minimal supervision and really have to know what they are doing.”

Since the capacity of fuel on the ship is so large, it can easily affect the list and trim of the ship.

“Our ship has 187 fuel tanks, which means we can carry approximately 3.2 million gallons of fuel while underway,” said Aviation Boatswain’s Mate (Fuels) 1st Class Rodeliza D. Santiago. “The fuel is used to refuel our aircraft, Aviation Intermediate Maintenance Department’s jet fuel cell testing, support equipment and also to power the fuel generators on board.”

Before the fuel can be used, it goes through a storage and refining process, ensuring it is up to standards.

“Once we receive fuel during an underway replenishment, it is stored in one of our 159 storage tanks,” Santiago said. “When fuel is needed, it is pulled from the storage tank by a transfer pump and is purified by one of the ships’ four purifiers and then stored in one of the 28 service tanks.

“All fuel is pulled from the service tanks after it goes through one of four filter separators,” Santiago said. “So far (after about a month), we have used (as much as) 170,000 gallons of fuel each day. You can see that fuel is always being consumed and moved.”

There is a lot of work involved in the fuel process. Tanks and purifiers constantly have to be cleaned to make sure unneeded particles aren’t consumed in machinery and equipment. 

“We make sure we clean our pumps every 250 hours of use or before every in-port period,” Santiago said. 

Santiago said since departing Everett in October, the ship conducted about 13,000 refueling operations, received 2.5 million gallons of fuel and has consumed about 1.6 million gallons of fuel.