Posted on 11/30/2012 5:24:04 AM PST by lbryce
After 51 years of service, the historic aircraft carrier is about to be decommissioned.
When the USS Enterprise (CVN 65) sailed away from Norfolk, Virginia, on its maiden voyage in 1962, it was the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, and the eighth Enterprise in a long dynasty reaching back to the Revolutionary War. Its eight nuclear reactors, reported the Chicago Daily Defender, had an energy potential "as great as that of all the reactors in the free world."
The most recent Enterprise played a role in the Cuban Missile Crisis, along with other ships in the Second Fleet, blockading shipments of military equipment to Cuba. During the height of the Vietnam War, nearly 100 aircraft were launched each day from the Enterprise, laden with explosives and bound for the Ho Chi Minh Trail. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the carrier—headed home after a long deployment—steamed overnight to the North Arabian Sea to participate in Operation Enduring Freedom.
On December 1, 2012, the carrier will be inactivated, ending 51 years of service. See the gallery above for more about its history. Here, two F/A-18 Super Hornets fly past the Enterprise on its last deployment, on October 4, 2012.
There has been an Enterprise since 1775, when Captain James Smith was ordered to Lake Champlain to take command of the 70-ton sloop that originally belonged to the British. Enterprise II was an eight-gun schooner purchased in 1776 that convoyed transports in the Chesapeake Bay. Enterprise III, a 12-gun schooner, searched for British privateers off the coast of Maine in 1812. Enterprise IV launched from the New York Navy Yard in 1831; while Enterprise V, a steam corvette with auxiliary sail power, was commissioned in 1877. . | 2 of 9 | Next »»
(Excerpt) Read more at airspacemag.com ...
What are they going to replace it with? Let me guess: we don’t need a military and a navy anymore because Obama’s contant appologizing has made the world into a peaceful, love-sick planet filled with butterflies and rainbows, puppy dogs and cotton candy meadows where children laugh and play with terrorists. We don’t need a space program either because space will come to us.
You have the wrong picture up. Those airplanes you describe as F18 super hornets are prop planes, so are the ones on the deck.
Well done good and faithful servant.
That looks like the WWII era carrier Enterprise. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USS_Enterprise_%28CV-6%29_in_Puget_Sound,_September_1945.jpg
I see two pictures...The top one has the Hornets..The lower pic is the WWII Enterprise....
Spock would tell Hussein to “Go to Hell,” except that Leonard Nimoy is a leftist freak.
Another feather in Hussein’s cap!
What is kind of sickening is that today’s “Global Force For Good” will not name another carrier “Enterprise”. We are now politically correct, so screw tradition. Farewell, Enterprise - and thanks for 51 extremely good years. Thousands of us who sailed on you will always have fond memories to cherish.
Hail and goodbye to a legendary ship which was the basis for the famous starship of another legendary series, “Star Treck”, its own version of the Enterprise.
Being retired. Wow.
I remember going to the launch ceremony at the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock when I was a teen.
And that is the pic he has the caption pinned too, not the upper pic.
Next ship in the series will be the U.S.S. Welfare.
The first picture in the article (that I see) has SuperBug flying past the Big E ... The SuperBug has the letters AB on its tail ... I’m flattered, but it’s not me.
In the spirit of obama’s new “flexibility” perhaps he will see fit to just donate it to Putin.
Bravo Zulu “CLIMAX”. You served us well.
Actually, the “Enterprise” that inspired the Star Trek “Enterprise” was CV-6 of World War II fame!
Why is this ship not being preserved as a museum? You would think that the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, one of the longest-serving ships ever in the Navy, and the namesake of the Navy’s most decorated ship of World War II would be worth preserving and saving for future generations instead of “dismantling and recycling.” Then again, the mighty CV-6 wasn’t saved either.
}:-)4
They’ll dismantle so much of the internals of the ship around the reactors there won’t be much left of it. My dad’s ship, the USS Gilmore AS-16 was basically gutted around the nuclear areas from services to nuclear submarines. There was a huge void in the middle of the ship from it over multiple decks from pictures I’ve seen of it at James River.
It’s been scrapped now.
The Enterprises were great ships!
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