With all that steel we should be able to make a whole lot of plowshares to send over to Iraq.
Active Duty/Retiree ping.
I did some work at the shipyard several years ago. Was in the drydock working under the Constellation. Really weird to be walking under this huge ship sitting on thousands of wooden beams. (”Wood beams!!?? That’s it? Twenty-first century with the most technologically advanced military? And I have to work under it supported by wood beams!!??”)
I had no idea Brownsville, Texas had a port that big.
Everything in life is temporary. This mighty ship will be just steel once again, just as we will return to dust. That’s the cycle of life, and that’s ok.
The feel and sound of being on the second deck of a KH class carrier running all eight boilers and all four screws turning at flank was awesome. The ship had a totally different feel to it at flank. You'd feel the internal vibration and the deck rising and falling. The turbines would be screaming. You just knew she was going all out.
The fact that none of them suffered a real full blown catastrophic boiler room disaster that could have blown the ship in half is a testimony to the quality standards they were build under. They had some incidents like America upon return from the MED in 1994 when at NOB but nothing close like what was possible to happen under a worse case scenario. Those were 8 boiler 1200 PSI superheated steam propulsion plants. Very deadly with even a pin hole leak. A silent unseen killer.
Both times I went to the Med we came back running Flank speed most of the way.
She and her class sister will suffer the fate of most ships. The bottom or the breakers.
Looks like Texas will have an abundance of material for steel targets soon.
Everything in life is temporary. This mighty ship will be just steel once again, just as we will return to dust. That’s the cycle of life, and that’s ok.
Has anyone ever worked out how many razor blades you could theoretically manufacture from a scrapped aircraft carrier?