Posted on 03/13/2011 11:49:58 AM PDT by I still care
The aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal has been decommissioned at a ceremony in its home base of Portsmouth.
The warship was scrapped after 25 years' service as part of the government's defence budget review.
The move leaves the Navy without the capability of launching fixed-wing aircraft until replacements come into service at the end of the decade.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
I mean, every homeowner can tell you, you don't junk your old car before you buy a new one. That leaves you without transport.
That’s what allies are for....
25 years? I would think that is nothing in the way of a life cycle of a Navy ship.
Sorta like the US putting all of its space shuttles in museums long before any replacement is built or even designed.
One of our carriers lasted over 50 years, I think Enterprise was the one that has served over 50 years.
Many were refitted along the way to carry modern jets. USS Hancock served 32 years, 1944-1976.
The worst part of this for the Brits will be the long break in continuity for that highly specialized expertise it takes to operate a carrier. So many things will have to be relearned from scratch when and if they deploy another carrier.
The new ones may never come into service.
They have all those public employees and welfare cases to support, the military just has to go.
Sun sets on the British navy.
I do hate to see rust stains under the hawsepipes of such a (venerable and) heavily crewed vessel.
Maybe these days it’s hard to get the greenhands to do any painting, being as they’re busy with gay activism and getting knocked up below and staying away from pirate infested waters and stuff.
I suspect Lord Nelson would give his left arm to keelhaul the entirety of today’s Royal Navy.
...And could she possibly need TWO transverse thrusters or are those through-hull outlets for the steam rooms, gay baths, and saunas?
Oh well. Loose lips...
Their money for defense is going to pay for all the welfare for multiple muslim wives and their offspring. While Mo drives a Mercedes from house to house and runs an off the books business.
It ran into a giant, strange storm and was transported into the past, into WWII. Being modern day Brits, they are much more pc, than the US. So instead of using modern day aircraft, which would have been too overwhelming, they tried to make things more FAIR, to attack Bizmarck, they used WWI Swordfish.Suddenly the giant, strange storm reappeared, and were transported back to modern days.
I saw it in a movie once.
Got to save that money to give homosexuals gender reassignment surgery.
Yes, that was two Ark Royals ago.
My squadron (VA-46) flew some sorties and conducted exercises with the Ark Royal back in the mid-seventies, here is a picture of one of our planes trapping on her deck...
But what I remember most about them was one day, as I was working in the fuel pits at Cecil Field, they had a few of their Buccaneer attack aircraft land to refuel (one of these)
As one of the planes was taxiing by, gray smoke began pouring out from inside the plane somewhere. The plane came to a jerking halt, and the crewmen scrambled out of the plane and ran about thirty yards away and turned to look back at the smoking plane while the rescue crews drove up...there was something oddly funny about that, though I am certain I would have done precisely the same thing in their shoes!
It was a silly kind of movie, but anything movie that shows Tomcats at high speed low on the water or dogfighting Zeros can’t be ALL bad!
The Ark Royal, definitely a piece of history. May she rest in peace.
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