Posted on 01/29/2010 8:31:44 PM PST by ErnstStavroBlofeld
USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) departed Northrop Grumman Newport News Shipbuilding in Newport News, Va., for sea trials Jan. 27 after a seven-month maintenance period.
During Sea Trials, the ship's electronics, communication, navigation and other combat systems that were built or modified in the shipyard will be tested.
In addition, an inspection of the ship's catapults and jet blast deflectors will be conducted, as well as inspections of the ship's berthing spaces, demonstrations of search and rescue equipment firefighting capabilities, and an evaluation of food service facilities to determine the ship's overall mission readiness.
Bush's sea trials comes after a highly successful Post Shakedown Availability/Selective Restrictive Availability that officially completed the construction of the Navy's newest aircraft carrier.
"In just seven months, the ship experienced an amount of depot and intermediate level work comparable to an 11-month planned incremental availability," said Bush's Chief Engineer, Cmdr. Shannon Terhune.
Work on the ship over the last seven months included finishing the airwing spaces and combat systems suite, implementation of ship alterations to get the ship on the class maintenance plan, and the completion of the ship's force work package.
Ship's force work saved the Navy more than half a million dollars, according to Bush Engineering Department Leading Chief Petty Officer, Master Chief Machinist's Mate (SW) Al Fuller, and more than 60 percent of the overall ship's force work package fell to Engineering Department Sailors to complete.
(Excerpt) Read more at navy.mil ...
QE II will probably disagree.
I don’t expect to have the honor so doesn’t matter to me. My great-uncle is on a postcard but he was gone before it was issued.
When does the US commission a warship? Is it before or after its sea trials?
When is it entitled to be referred to as "USS" and/or using its pendant number?
From the article, I infer that the practice is different than that for HM ships or HMC ships.
The QE2 was named after QEI (1533-1603), it was built as a replacement for the original QE that was scrapped in Hong Kong in 1975.
Prince Philip met with Cunard people when they were deciding on the name for the replacement for the QEI. They told him they were going to name it after
Queen Elizabeth but they meant “the First”. He replied “Oh, I’ll tell her. She’ll be so pleased.” or words to that effect. Cunard was caught and couldn’t very well dis the Queen by not naming the new ship after her.
QEI was destroyed by a suspicious fire in Hong Kong while being converted to a floating University. Rumor had it the guy funding the project ran out of money.
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