The Durable Lexington
When searching for longevity in aircraft carrier performance, one need look no further than the former USS Lexington, now a museum in Corpus Christi Bay, Texas. Her active service lasted so long that she ran through an alphabet soup of hull numbers: CV-16, CVA-16, CVS-16, CVT-16, and AVT-16. They reflected her changing roles over the years, beginning with service as an attack carrier, later as an antisubmarine carrier, and finally as the training platform for at least two generations of naval aviators.
