Posted on 02/20/2012 10:16:12 PM PST by U-238
flight decks that once thundered and boomed with jet aircraft are silent. The passageways and compartments where thousands of sailors worked, ate and slept are empty. The once meticulously swept and kept decks are worn and torn, some covered in bird droppings.
The names of the Navy’s seven decommissioned non-nuclear aircraft carriers conjure up well-earned reputations as Cold War bulwarks. And while at least some are the objects of preservation efforts, chances are slim more than one will survive as a museum ship. The rest are taking up valuable pier space, and the only thing the Navy wants now is to get rid of them
(Excerpt) Read more at nosint.blogspot.com ...
Australia,South Korea or Brazil might want to purchase one.
give them all to Israel.
I like that idea.
Carriers awaiting disposal
Shown are the carriers’ current locations and the planned disposal option for each.
• Forrestal (AVT 59, ex-CV 59), stricken Sept. 11, 1993. In Philadelphia. Scrap.
• Saratoga (CV 60), stricken Aug. 20, 1994. In Newport, R.I. Scrap (changed from donation hold).
• Ranger (CV 61), stricken March 8, 1994. In Bremerton, Wash. Donation hold.
• Independence (CV 62), stricken March 8, 2004. In Bremerton. Scrap.
• Kitty Hawk (CV 63), decommissioned May 12, 2009, and placed in Mobilization Category B, or “mothballs,” for preservation and possible future use. In Bremerton. Unstated disposal option.
• Constellation (CV 64), stricken Dec. 2, 2003. In Bremerton. Scrap.
• John F. Kennedy (CV 67), stricken Oct. 16, 2009. In Philadelphia. Donation hold.
Source: Naval Sea Systems Command.
Bump!
And give them the planes and bombs.
That is a great application of our technology.
Everything depends of the price of scrap steel:
The absolute worse case scenario is that it will cost the US Navy $2 to $3 billion dollars to scrap the ships.
They should all be turned into museums. It is not fair to the veterans of these ships to see them in the scrap heap.
These ships wont survive as museum pieces because of the economy.The ship that should have been saved was CV-6.USS Enterprise.She was scrapped out by 1959 or 60.She was awarded the most battle stars for surviving WW2 Ships.Her crows nest is in Annapolis at the Naval academy.
These ships wont survive as museum pieces because of the economy.The ship that should have been saved was CV-6.USS Enterprise.She was scrapped out by 1959 or 60.She was awarded the most battle stars for surviving WW2 Ships.Her crows nest is in Annapolis at the Naval academy.
Good quality scrap steel, several tons copper and aluminum, and several sons marine brass in the props, lots of good salvage there.
She was commissioned in 1938 and scrapped in 1958
the CV-6 was commissioned in 1938 and scrapped in 1958
But you are scrapping history.
Turn them all into cruise ships.
Without Italian captains at the helm
LOLz! I love that idea. They could stay at sea long time and ferry folks on and off by helicopter or private jet. Imagine being a catapault operator on the Love Boat Deux!
Do you know what is the other number one big exporter to China is? Waste Paper. According to author Clyde Prestowitz, China’s number one export to the U.S. is computer equipment (nearly $50 billion) while our number one export to them is waste paper and scrap metal (approximately $8 billion).
I was a catapult operator in ‘61-’62 on CVA-42 (FDR), which was scrapped in late ‘70s I think. It was an emotional event to see a pic of the ship and an article saying it was going to be scrapped.
When in the Med. Sea, we served along with the first three carriers on that list, and maybe the fourth.
True, but more is being made every day so there will never be a shortage.
Second part is IIRC everything below second deck is still classified. What you learn even from The Forestall much of it would apply too nukes as well.
The construction is still so classified that the AMERICA sank a few years ago too obtain data to build the new FORD Class carrier was sank in three miles plus deep water. The coordinates where it was actually sank are secret.
Right, but they are apart of our heritage. All them saw combat duty in Vietnam and the other conflicts we had.Yes, you have the Intrepid in NYC, but these are the “Cold Warriors”. I know a guy who was a EA-6 Intruder pilot on one of the carriers during Vietnam and he is shocked.
We all know which carrier on the list will be the museum and where it will likely be headed.
That is true. But did they strip the technology off the plane before they sank it?
I meant the aircraft carrier.
I do know there was some extensive yard work going on before she was taken out. There was a fire in or adjoining the compartment that was Chiefs Mess. That would be aft, starboard below crew mess decks close to the fwd passage hatch.
I've seen just about every space there was on that ship in 79&80 during overhaul. Red Shirt {Fire Dept} allowed me to see things which a few months later would be secured spaces. I was in the Fire Department during most of the drydock overhaul and did fire hazard walk throughs. I also walked underneath her and ever went inside a boiler to the base of the stack. I took a short in and out test run on her before I got out.
I envy you.
>>A leak even the size of a pencil lead can decapitate you. You can’t hear or see the leak. The only detection as such is using a broom handle to wave it around in the area you are working in.
I was a co-op engineering student working for Georgia Power in the late 70s. One of the old school Boiler Operators giving the Auxiliary Equipment Operator class I went through at the plant taught us all of that, with additional gruesome real-life examples. Glad I never encountered any of it.
Back to the issue at hand, it is unreasonable to think that this many additional museums can be maintained, most will need to be scrapped. There are quite a number of carrier museums now, mostly Essex class ships IIRC.
Given your comments about naval architecture secrets, I don’t think we want to sell them to an Indian scrapper. Somehow the Chinese will manage to be all over them.
Yea as for the museums it cost a fortune to even get a carrier to where it can be used for that much less maintain it. The taxpayers will pick up Kennedy though that is a political given. I'm just saying that because of the political reality of it. Forestall will never be forgotten in Naval history.
I read of guys on the ship before me tell of a Feed Water Pump impeller going through the housing and impaled into the deck above sometime in the early 1970's. While we were at sea in about 79 we lost an entire Main {boiler room two boilers each Main} because a feed water line ruptured into an electrical switchboard. It melted it literally. Both incidents no one got hurt by some miracle. Next thing was a fire in 78. I know that one because me and a guy in my shop found it. We were T.A.D. to Fire Dept and happened to walk by a storeroom off the hanger bay boiling out smoke. The heat transfer from that fire went up two decks real fast. I wasn't on duty but suited up for investigating other nearby spaces. I saw floor tiles bubbling two decks up.
After I got out sometime in the mid 1980's a JP5 pump-room exploded and killed two airmen unfortunate enough to be down there. I remember the place wreaked when we were standing in the chow line even back in the late 70's. After that in 1993 the ship had been sent on three six month deployments in as many years. When they returned on the third cruise they had a boiler explosion and went Cold Iron too the yards. She made one more cruise afterward and was decommissioned.
Nukes and conventionals are both steamers as far as what actually powers them. The difference is method of steam generation. That is why they still don't want much construction details seen.
BTW the worse thing that you can hear in a boiler room is complete silence. I mean by that you don’t hear anything whatsoever yet you see lights, on equipment running, etc. It means you have a major steam leak. It is above your hearing range but it literally silences everything else. We were warned about it. Spooky.
Couple additional points. Due to repeated trips up the NE I-95 corridor (through Baltimore) I got to see the slow-motion tragedy of the Coral Sea scrapping, if from something of a distance. Not pretty - looked like the ship just sat there forever.
The biggest issue with scrapping is going to be the fluctuating price of the metal. It’s really high right now, but if it drops I’d bet it’ll put any company scrapping these things right into bankruptcy (as happened with Coral Sea). And given how long it’ll take to cut a supercarrier apart, chances are the price of scrap metal will drop.
Enterprise’s (CVN-65) scrapping is really going to suck. I bet the USN really wishes there was some way to just make the thing safe for museum donation (like filling in the reactor compartments with lead or something ... that’s a joke btw). Not so much for posterity or historical preservation but from cost and effort. The ship won’t so much be “scrapped” as “deconstructed” in order to get at and remove the reactors.
I served on board the Kennedy.
Turn them into prison ships, park them south of Mexico, perpahps Guatamala, El Salvador, etc. Send criminals who are also illegal aliens to be housed in them and hire CHEAP locals to be prison guards.
IF the eco-freaks would stop worrying about how “clean” their disposal will be, there are folks in India who make a living breaking up ships like CVs.
I served on both the forrestal and the kennedy... when the fid was in mayport, sinkin’ sarah was right next to us...
I thought I remember seeing the bridge there.Damned old age and wishful thinking.I do remember seeing the photo of the bridge lying on the deck.Thanks for clearing up that misconception on my part.
Sad sight was it not?
And they ground up my first ship USS Ticonderoga CVA 14 for scrap. I worked on the flight deck-Crash/Salvage 67-69, very exciting times.
Park them in the Hudson River. During rush hour, turn them to span the river and act as bridges. NYC bound traffic on the lfight deck, NJ bound on the hangar deck. When rush hour ends, turn them parallel to the shore line so river traffic can again pass.
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I think they should sale perpetually in International Waters and become independent nations, so I would have some way to leave America to the socialists and start over.
It could expand it’s holdings by picking on some uninhabited island, planting a flag on the shore, and claiming it for a new land.
We need some new place to which we can emigrate where personal initiative means something, and we are not ruled by the hive.
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