Posted on 03/06/2005 5:06:07 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
WASHINGTON -- The Navy plans to send the retired carrier USS America to the bottom of the Atlantic in explosives tests this spring, an end difficult to swallow for some who served on board.
The Navy says the effort, which will cost $22 million, will provide valuable data for the next generation of aircraft carriers, which are now in development. No warship this size or larger has ever been sunk, so there is a dearth of hard information on how well a supercarrier can survive battle damage, said Pat Dolan, a spokeswoman for Naval Sea Systems Command.
The Navy's plan raises mixed emotions in Ed Pelletier, who served on the America as a helicopter crewman when the ship cruised the Mediterranean shortly after its commissioning in 1965.
He said he was ''unhappy that a ship with that name is going to meet that fate, but happy she'll be going down still serving the country." Pelletier, of Poughkeepsie, N.Y., is a trustee of an association of veterans who served on the America.
Issues surrounding a vessel bearing the name of its country are often more sensitive than for other ships. In 1939, Adolf Hitler, fearful of a loss of morale among his people should Germany's namesake ship be sunk, ordered the pocket battleship Deutschland renamed.
Since its decommissioning in 1996, the America has been moored with dozens of other inactive warships at a Navy yard in Philadelphia. The Navy's plan is to tow it to sea on April 11 -- possibly stopping at Norfolk, Va. -- before heading to the deep ocean, 300 miles off the Atlantic coast, for the tests, Dolan said.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
The Lincoln
The Carter
The Roosevelt
The Washington
The Reagan
Just a couple more...(like a hundred or so... )
:)
They've been scuttled?
Yeah, they just named a submarine the USS Horse's Ass, in honor of Jimmy Carter.
Rename the carrier the "Kopechne" and watch what happens.
It's rudder was welded so only circles to the left are possible.
Oh, I thought you meant those that were named...
There must have been a bunch, destroyers are named after people, larger ships are named after battles and states
I served on the LaMoure County, I think that is a copral reef now, the Okinawa is a coal reef or razor blades somewhere...
I hope this data is valuable. I hear scrap steel is bringing a good price now.
Thanks for the LINK.
LOL.
I heard that. They claim he was a nuclear engineer.
Thanks for the information!
Seems a waste to just sink it like that.
Yes it does.
Wouldn't they be able to test for weaknesses another way - with computer simulations?
It's in such poor condition to refurbish it would approach the cost of just building a new carrier.
It never was SLEPPed (service life extension program) back when the other old carriers were in the 80s.
No need to start a new thread here, one already exists at:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1355394/posts?page=113#113
I'd like to buy it. My fishing buddies would be impressed salmon trolling off the deck of a carrier. Problem is I don't know if I have enough room for winter storage. How long is it? I imagine transporting it would be a dog. Don't think it would make it thru the Soo Locks.
Guess I'll wait for the government to put a B52 on the auction block. Be good for duck hunting in the fall. Plus I have storage space for it.
I'm hoping to pick up one of those M1A Abrams tanks. That would make a mighty fine off-road vehicle. Might be useful around the yard, too.
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