Posted on 04/13/2015 1:43:29 PM PDT by BenLurkin
n the not-too-distant future, drivers in Washington state could cross the Sinclair Inlet on a bridge made of two or three decommissioned aircraft carriers.
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No aircraft carrier is available for the project—not yet, at least. Currently, the backers of the project have their eyes on the USS Independence, which was commissioned in the 1960s and could go to the salvage yard later this year, and the USS Kitty Hawk, a carrier that sailed in the Vietnam War after its 1958 commission.
(Excerpt) Read more at popularmechanics.com ...
Isn’t this a navigable waterway? How could it just be closed off by end-to-end aircraft carriers?
The two ships are moored facing each other, and you catapult from one deck to the other.
I’m thinking they point the bows upstream and build a bridge between the hulls. Sort of a really big pontoon bridge. Believe it or not, the Persians did in 480 BC and it worked. Naturally you’d be able to navigate under the bridge between the hulls.
Install some shops and restaurants, a few apartments....hmm
Stupid idea. Not a floating bridge per se, but taking on the upkeep of 3 ancient vast steel hulks.
Sounds like a Democrat plan.
I lived in Port Orchard when I was stationed in Puget Sound Naval Shipyard while decommissioning the USS Scamp. This ugly and expensive boondoggle would cut about 4 miles off the trip. The picture in the article does not show that Sinclair Inlet ends just a little to the west of the right edge of the picture. How convenient that they lopped that off.
“It will be a great day when they have to have a bake sale to buy the aircraft carriers.”
I’m thinking the better choice would be to melt them down and recycle the steel into a suspension bridge.
I think you’re on the right track. Draft is about 40..probably less when the superstructure, engines, and machinery are removed..sold for scrap..she’d ride higher...estimate now that the height from the waterline to the deck is about 100-120 feet..so depending on the bridge height clearances, they might have to elevate the roadway 50 feet or so above the deck.It’s doable, and probably at 1/2 the cost of building a cable-stay bridge...but there’ one obvious problem that I see. That whole region is very seismically active..so a quake...a tsunami..and the whole thing imitates Galloping Gertie..
Ooops, where's the other carrier?
If I had the money, I’d buy the USS Independence and refurbish it in to a cruise ship, while retaining it’s launching/landing capabilities.
I’d also buy some old Navy F4’s, hire some retired jet-jockeys and mechanics and book week-long “Carrier-Based Jet Camp” cruises. The pilots would take participants up in the old fighter jets for flights around the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico.
The fee would include a total of, say, 120 minutes of flight time during the week, with a minimum of three launches and three arresting hook landings.
Apart from the carrier deck and flight operations, I’d convert the ship so that it had typical cruise-ship style berthing, dining, and activities.
A week at “camp” would be very expensive, but I’ll bet there would be a lot of people who’d pay it.
IF I had the money...
Washington State floating bridges have a history of sinking in storms (Hood Canal, Lake Washington). I’m sure they’ll find a way to sink the carriers too.
Give Obama and the libs enough time and all our carriers will be decommissioned.
Exactly right. What are they going to do when one of those hulls need to be drydocked or risk sinking in place? Who gets to pay for that? (Never mind, I withdraw the question, the same people who always do).
Quite right, the maintenance on those aircraft carriers, even stripped down to the bones, would be much larger than the maintenance on any conventional bridge.
If Obama has his way, they’ll build it with Nimitz-class carriers.
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