Brothers Kitty Hawk Models Take a close look at the Control Tower. At the base of the tower there are two bronze plaques talking about the first flight of the Wright Brothers airplane at Kitty Hawk North Carolina in 1903, thus giving this great ship its name the USS Kitty Hawk, CV-63. The other plaque is mounted on the front of the port side of the tower.
Port means left, and starboard means right.
The distance is 120 feet. The length of this tower is about 140 feet. To put this in perspective, the Wright Brothers first flight was less than the distance from the front of the tower to the back of the tower. Another view of this is distance is the length of the catapults which launch the jets off of this carrier. The catapults are about 250 feet long.