Posted on 04/20/2010 5:03:10 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
After a laborious two-year overhaul beset by delays, cost overruns and unforeseen problems, Navy officials said Monday that the military's oldest nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is once again ready for war.
The 49-year-old Enterprise, which has been docked at Northrop Grumman's Newport News shipyard since April 2008, was originally slated to return to service six months ago. That plan changed after repair crews discovered damage and decay - from rotted pipes to fried electronics - far beyond what they'd anticipated.
As the list of repairs grew, so did costs, to nearly $700 million from an initial estimate of $450 million.
That's led critics to question whether the money was worth it: The Navy plans to deploy the Big E just two more times before decommissioning the carrier in 2013.
On Monday, as the ship pulled into Norfolk Naval Station after its first post-overhaul sea test, officials with Northrop Grumman acknowledged that its journey back to service was a frustrating one.
"There were points when it seemed like it wasn't going to end because we just kept finding more and more damage," said Dan Klemencic, one of two Northrop Grumman directors assigned to the overhaul. "We had to find the right mix of 'fix it' or 'live with it.' "
(Excerpt) Read more at hamptonroads.com ...
Bttt
How do you think I feel???........I did my training Sep 1961..........
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When Enterprise was built, she was powered by 8 small nuclear reactors, and a great deal of the superstructure that supported the entire engineering plant was completely inaccessible once she was fueled, and was highly irradiated forever afterwards.
There simply wasn’t any way to even inspect parts of the ship that essentially kept the Reactor department from falling through the bottom of the hull, and there were plenty of people in a position to know, who feared that was exactly what was going to happen some day. Nobody was sure how much corrosion, damage, and deterioration from long term exposure to ionizing radiation there was, which is at least partially why the overhaul expanded so dramatically.
As I recall, she has been operating with a number of her original reactors deactivated, and still has plenty of power to spare, but Newport News and the Navy put off making permanent repairs as long as they could and finally ran out of time. I believe some of the original reactor deactivation activities consisted of filling certain spaces with concrete, which of course does nothing to preserve steel and in fact probably accelerated much of the deterioration, not to mention creating another whole mess of highly radioactive waste material.
I’ve heard talk for years, speculating that it would be cheaper to scrap her than to try and rebuild her, and I think her time has almost come. Enterprize is a one of a kind hull, and I don’t think she will ever end up as a memorial anywhere; she is simply too hazardous to keep around. More than likely, large parts of her will have to be buried as high level nuclear waste for centuries, once she heads to the boneyard for scrapping.
Till then, she’ll keep on shootin’ ‘em and catchin’ ‘em...
I have a petition on my bottom web page to have CVN-79(the new Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier) to be the ninth ship to bear the the name Enterprise. I really encorage people who were veterans of the Enterprise,fans of the aircraft carrier or Star Trek to sign the petition.
I believe there is a group out there who want to call it “USS America” ever since the last one was sent down in Glory somewhere off the Eastern Seaboard...
Lots of us old carrier sailors are still upset about that one! Keep in mind that you should NEVER mention USS America and Hanoi Jane at the same time...too many of us vets are getting too old to take much more of this crap, and our tickers might not handle the strain...
I will be sure to keep that in mind.Thanks
:)
That's a bit outdated. Just last week we had three of 'em parked here at NASNI.
Scrapping Enterprise is NOT going to be cheap....
When they scrap a sub, they cut the entire section of the hull containing the reactor plant in one piece, weld it up closed, then store it at Hanford Washington. Fairly simple.
I have no idea how they plan to scrap Enterprise...it will be a massive undertaking....8 reactor plants. Will be fun to watch.
yah...scrapping Enterprise won’t be done on the beach in Southern India, I can guarantee you. We might consider towing it up into Russian waters where they have sunk more than a few of their old nuclear subs and just scuttle her, but that has little chance of happening. No telling what the cost to scrap and dispose of her would be, but it is going to be a considerable sum. Might even have to have Newport News do it, since they are equipped to handle nuclear material...
But for all the talk we hear about “cleaning up” Hanford reach, it still remains the single best spot we have to bury stuff like that.
When Oregon decommissioned the Trojan nuclear power plant several years ago, they packaged the reactor vessel, put it on a barge and towed it up the Columbia River to be buried on the Hanford reservation. The thing was just enormous, and that was the only thing there was to be done with it...bury it and post a really durable sign over the top...
When I was on the Ike in Newport News shipyard back in 94 there was, in the drydock next to us, the hull of the nuclear cruiser USS Long Beach. Don’t know what happened to her nuclear plant.
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