CVN-77 nearing completion
Posted on 10/03/2006 8:06:52 AM PDT by Jeff Head
CVN-77 to be Christened on October 7th, 2006
From the Northrop Grumman site.
On Saturday, October 7, 2006, Northrop Grumman Newport News will christen the nation’s 10th and final Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, George H. W. Bush (CVN 77). The ship’s namesake and 41st President of the United States, George H. W. Bush, is scheduled to attend the ceremony along with his wife Barbara and their daughter, Doro Bush Koch, Mrs. Koch also serves as the ship’s sponsor and will do the traditional honor of breaking a bottle of American sparkling wine across the ship’s bow during the ceremony. Employees of Northrop Grumman Newport News and their families are invited. The general public is also invited to the ceremony. Visit the links below for additional information.Here are some of the latest construction pictures...a beautiful site to behold:
CVN-77 nearing completion
CVN-77 props added
CVN-77 Island lift
CVN-77 ready for christening
CVN-77 another view of CVN-77 ready for christening
I think that the old Midway (CV-41) was converted into a museum in San Diego, but I'm not sure. Look at the pictures at the beginning of this post. Does the island structure look like that? If not, it could be the Midway.
Midway has a distinguishable smokestack in the aft part of the island, with "41" painted on it.
Sign me up, I'll serve on Her!
when he ran for the second term, I kept wondering why he wasn't campaigning hard enough? It just seemed to me he maybe didn't want the second term in office.
Renaming ships once they've been christened is considered bad luck.
KITTY HAWK has seen her full designed life Connie as well but they can remain as active reserve carriers for training. That is another protocol being broken is the elimination of the reserve as in immediately deployable carrier usually used for training purposes. They generally do not deploy but do have work ups off the coast. JFK unofficially served as such during the Clinton years. The JFK if what I've heard is true is wore out. She was done much like the AMERICA and was refused Ship Life Extension Program. Second option is have NNSB &DD turn out two conventional which do have advantages nukes do not. This allows for far shorter qualification times of the snipes.
The Navy can have a conventional snipe standing second and third skill level Machinery room watches before the Nuke snipe ever see's even a ship and still has to qualify for watch. By a snipes second cruise he should be well skilled in his job for his pay grade and if an E-3 making E-4 right before or during the second cruise. You can do this without the snipe even going to any schooling beyond basic training. The leave basic and do 6 weeks or used to be 6 weeks in either fireman, seaman, or airman advanced training and they go to the ship. Time elapsed about 4 and a half months. NCO status in the Navy is E-4.
This would not only effects Machinist mates but nearly all engineering ratings. Despite the hype nukes require as much down time as conventionals. You are still dealing with steam turbines etc and a 1200 PSI steam system. It's not a matter of the reactor holding up it's a matter of the other equipment that requires maintenance much of it requiring a shipyard environment for safety and needed tooling etc.
If nuke carriers aren't seeing a standard 3 month yard period after each deployment then something bad is wrong. As well they also like a conventional should see drydock after the third six month deployment or every 5 years. This is for valve replacements, hull maintenance, screw repairs, rudder repairs, etc. It still must be done. At half life Nuke carriers require a 5 year overhaul for refueling and reactor issues.
He won't go away, so they'll name a hover craft after him...cigar shaped.
As a Grumman employee I was directly affected by Cheney's decision, with which I vehemently disagreed, and still do to this day. It took the Slick Willy presidency to make me so fearful for the continuance of the Republic that I would overlook that blunder on Cheney's part and vote for the man for VP.I hate this business of naming our capital ships after politicians -- especially politicians who haven't shown us the courtesy of dying first.But as to the statement I quote above, I recall no contract tiff at that time worth mentioning (early in the F-14 program is another matter entirely). And as to the destruction of the tools, which I can confirm, I ruefully note that whenever an aircraft program is cancelled its opponents will drive a stake through its heart it that way. They never are content to allow for the possibility that it might ever be prudent to change that decision in light of future events.
That's a scandal, of course - but there it is. Politics 101.
- Ronald Reagan's funeral was in '04 because that's when he stopped breathing - but in the operative political sense he gave a whole new meaning to the term "committing political suicide" when he wrote his famous letter revealing that he had Alzheimer's Disease. So I think that the naming of the good ship Gipper was entirely justifiable.
- However, it did give cover for the incumbent president to name a carrier after his father, whose place in history should be political heir of Ronald Reagan and one of only three sitting VPs to be elected POTUS. But he abandoned that legacy with "read my hips" and has the place in history that he lost to the most venal president in US history. A mediocrity, other than for raising a successor president and a governor of Florida who may never be president but who is in fact worth serious mention for the 08 Republican nomination.
- It has to be said that there is also the precedent of the nuclear sub Carter, named for a living former POTUS who was formerly as submariner as George H.W. Bush was formerly a crewman on an aircraft carrier (but I'm not sure whether that is a precedent for or a result of the naming of the GHW Bush).
Cheney didn't do it to spite your company. A freeper a while back explained it that he did it to spite the Pentagon. It seems one of his pet programs the Pentagon had issue with {possibly the Osprey} had some funding for it used for other more pressing purposes and as a result or rather punishment he canceled production of F-14's. I wish I could find that thread and post if I do I'll ping you to it. Canceling the Tomcats has to be one of the worst planning moves in modern Naval Aviation. It was the best carrier based Navy fighter. Funding for Avionics upgrades and keeping the F-14 would have been a far better use of money and resources.
After all was said and done, given the mission profile required, the US Navy and our planners have (in my estimation rightly so) decided to go forward with the large deck nuclear carriers for the forseeable future...at least 50+ years. These carriers will continue to get provide more and more capability, be more and more efficient, be less manpower intensive, be more stealthy, and be more modern/furutristic as time goes on.
...I just might add, that in my own estimation, we need 14-16 of them rather thanb 12...or the 10 some are proposing.
In addition, by retiring the entire S-3 ASW capability, we have given enemy submarines a much better chance to get in close to the carrier. With the S-3s ranging well in advance and to either side of the carrier group...with their speed, loiter capability, and ordinance load, our CSGs were much better protected on the ASW front. I keep hoping that an AV-22 variant for ASW will be developed to fill that gap. Another very foolish "peace dividend" in a very dangerous world.
Finally add to that the decomissioning and disposal (More than half by sinking) of the Spruance class destroyers when they had a good 10-15 year service life (or more) left in them, also weakened the prtotective umbrella around a CSG or a PHIBRON. THose vessels were quiet and very well suited to ASW roles which the BUrkes are now having to pick up...diluting their abilities in the AAW role for which they are most suited.
I might add, though I agree with the general prosecution of the WOT that this administration has done, all of these things have happened under the current administration. (BTW, it would have been MUCH worse under any adminstration on the other side of the aisl).
In the face of this draw down (in the last five years we have built 39 new major surface combatants but decomissioned and disposed of 45), we see the PLAN building and buying new modern major surface combatants like crazy. By comparison, in the last five years they have increased their own fleet by 80 major combatants...while we lost 6. They are still behind for sure...but with numbers like that, if they continue, they will catch up very quickly.
. Funding for Avionics upgrades and keeping the F-14 in production would have obviated the point to development of the F-18E/F, which is (as you likely know) a look-alike to rather than a different model of the previous F-18 aircraft. Since the F-14 is a bigger and far more capable aircraft than anything which is called an F-18.With the money spent on the F-18E/F you could likely have built all the F-14s the carriers needed until the F-14 was supplanted by a truly superior (stealthy) aircraft.
Always assuming you could ameliorate the maintenance/flight hour issue.
Does this mean that There's going to be a USS KLINTOON?
CVN's are awfully high-value targets.When I heard the Navy praising the Reagan and projecting a 50 year operational lifetime for it, I couldn't help wondering if carriers will still be militarily viable in 2050. Stranger things have happened, I suppose . . .
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