Carrier Disposal Proves Difficult to Navy

Naval Open Source INTelligence ^ | 2/20/2012 | Naval Open Source INTelligence

[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

[U-238]

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).

[octex]

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.

[Brad’s Gramma]

!

[count-your-change]

True, but more is being made every day so there will never be a shortage.

[cva66snipe]

They should not be sold for several reasons. One is they are wore out. All on the list but the Forestall which was the last 600 PSI plant for carriers are 1200 PSI boiler plants 8 boilers per carrier. 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. When these boilers blow they are like bombs. You can't economically replace the boilers themselves as they are the first thing installed in building. They can only be re-tubed so many times.

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.

[U-238]

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.

[U-238]

The coordinates of the USS America: Coordinates: 33°09′09″N 71°39′07″W / 33.1525°N 71.65194°W / 33.1525; -71.65194, around 250 mi (400 km) southeast of Cape Hatteras. The wreck lies upright in one piece 16,860 ft (5,140 m) below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean

[cva66snipe]

LOL so they say. For a while they would not give out much info even to former crew members. Finally a few pictures were released. They hit her pretty hard though during the testing we were told and she gave a good fight till they did the final charges to make certain she went on down. Three miles down nobodies going to see much and she sure can't be raised with todays technology. With hatches welded shut no instruments that manage to reach her will see much.

We all know which carrier on the list will be the museum and where it will likely be headed.

[U-238]

That is true. But did they strip the technology off the plane before they sank it?

[U-238]

I meant the aircraft carrier.

[cva66snipe]

It was so secretive no one knows likely but the yard birds. Members of the ships veterans association were allowed to see limited spaces before it went out. They also placed a time capsule in her. The guys that were in my shop picture is in it LOL.

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.

[U-238]

I envy you.

[cva66snipe]

At the time I didn't really appreciate what all I was seeing. The Navy's best school too learn a ship is overhaul. You can see things taken apart that you won't likely see again.

[FreedomPoster]

>>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.

[cva66snipe]

The yards are where ships are most vulnerable both too attack and to the enemy learning construction details. They learn construction they learn where too hit. I do wonder why the COLE attack was such a lucky hit? With that said I also think building a shipyard anywhere in the PG Middle East was the height of insanity. We have far better friends on the MED side of the Suez and better means to secure it.

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.

[cva66snipe]

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.

[tanknetter]

That is true. But did they strip the technology off the plane before they sank it?

The technology couldn't really be stripped off, because it was built into the ship.

In the case of all the "supercarriers", there are many engineering design "tricks" used to produce a ship so large and with such capacity/capability and survivability. One of the most important - and classified - ones is how to make the armored flight deck the ships' "strength deck" while having four really large holes cut in the sides of the hull for elevator access to the hangar. It should be noted that for the Ford-class carriers, which were designed using data from the America trials, they are going down to three elevators ...

In the case of the America specifically, she was sunk so deep in large part to prevent inspection of the damage caused in the trials that sank her. For instance, did the Navy attempt to break her back using Mk.48s - which don't explode on contact but rather explode underneath the hull, creating an overpressure "bubble" that then causes the damage? If so, how well did it work? I don't know about America, per se, but there was a great article years ago in one of the naval press periodicals called "Iron Ladies in Glass Skirts" that spoke to the vulnerability of the Iowa-class battleships to such weapons.

[tanknetter]

Her crows nest is in Annapolis at the Naval academy.

Actually, the USNA has the Enterprise's bell. The crows nest (more correctly, the signal bridge) was supposed to be saved and mounted on the football stadium. This never happened, pictures of the ship at the time of scrapping (being towed away from Brooklyn to Kearny) show the bridge having been removed and lain on the flightdeck. But unlike other artifacts (the anchor that's a the Washington DC Navy Yard and her nameplate which is up in New Jersey) the bridge was unfortunately not saved.

[tanknetter]

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.

[brivette]

I served on board the Kennedy.