pondrunner

Well, two days ago the USS Enterprise set sail to support 5th and 6th Fleet operations on her final voyage to the Gulf. Something tells me she may yet have some fight left in her! What a ship and what a history. I got the privilege to live and fly off the decks of the Eisenhower and Roosevelt for a short time, but I always wished it had been the Enterprise. She comes home to be decommissioned in December of this year and sold for scrap. Some things just don't seem right. Seems the government doesn't have the money to turn it into a museum. I've never been emotional over a boat, but this gets to me. I guess we have to make way for the USS Pelosi...

Lofty

Safe passage to Her and her valiant crew! I know this is her last deployment, she's served long and well.

jvcobra

I spent a week on her and got catapulted off, glad I had the opportunity.

Joe Todesca

Have you ever been to Benicia Ca. and seen the (mothball fleet) very sad! Jo

Lofty

I see it every day! It's mostly rusted out old hulks now. Supply ships, oilers, tugs and such. No more carriers or Battle ships. They Moved the USS Iowa over to the Port of Richmond for paint and re-fit, She's going to the Port of Longbeach as a museum.

If you want to see some sad old decommissioned carriers go to Bremerton, they've got 5 or 6 lined up at the South end of the base. They all list on their keels at low tide. Now THAT is a sad sad sight.

They've been braking ships out at Mare Island in the old graving docks. That's a sight to behold and about as sad as it gets. At least they're putting the old graving docks to good use and we get to see all the car ads being filmed.

articfriends

iTrader: (1)

I was stationed on the USS Enterprise from 1987 till 1990 in Alameda Ca then Newport News ship yards Virgina. A few things I will mention that MANY have NEVER heard about the big E. We went into the shipyards in 1990 for a "overhaul" because the Senator John Glenn commision did a study that to dispose of the ship would cost more at the time than re-fitting it and running it a little longer , they wanted to decommision it BUT there was so much radioactive stuff on board it would have been a obscene amount to remove and bury its EIGHT reactors, and build a ship to replace it, they said something in the 3 BILLION plus range IF I remember correctly and the refueling and overhaul was ONLY 2.16 billion (you guys think your fuel bill is high!!!) I mention EIGHT reactors, the Big E was the only ship in the USN that was ever built with eight reactors, the way that come about believe it or not was back in the 50's we were in HIGH competiton with the Ruskies, word out was they were going to build a nuclear powered ship and we wanted to beat them to it, we wanted to make the ship a "super carrier" that could go faster than ANY other carrier EVER had and be able to go YEARS without stopping for fuel (well, at least fuel for the ship, still needed jet fuel constantly for the planes/jets). So we had just built the Nautilus Sub that was nuclear powered (commisioned in 1954) and had put alot of work into building cute, little, tiny reactors that would fit in a sub. So, someone in charge in the pentagon said" hmm, why can't we build a new carrier and just stick a BUNCH of Nautilus class reactors in it??? Sounded like a great idea, we wouldn't have any more appropiate sized reactors ready for 10 more years. So the ship was built with 8 slightly modified A2W Westinghouse reactors that were essentially Nautilus submarine reactors (picture sticking 4 hot v-6's in your offshore boat in stead of 2 big blocks). The Navy planned on building 5 more just like her BUT the cost in 1958 was 451 MILLION dollars and the number of engineering personnel required to run her was outrageous so the Pentagon cancelled them. There wasn't another Nuclear powered aircraft carrier built until the USS Nimitz some 10 plus years later and it had 2 MUCH bigger reactors vs the 8 tiny little ones the big E had, I have personally been down in the reactor compartments and stood 2 feet away from them (not for long though).
In the 1980's we had MANY rad-con incidents on the Enterprise, the stuff was antiquated and wasn't the best design anymore, it wasn't nothing to have radioactive coolant leaks and other stuff falling apart all the time, our Hull Tech welders used to get a years worth of alloted radiation exsposure in 15 minutes welding stuff, at one point they had to fly them off and get some on-board that weren't limited out on exsposure.
Another fact that may or may not be true that we were told again and again by engineering was that when they built the ship they weren't really sure what it would do and that the ships top speed was "classified", the rumour was it went 60 plus knots during sea testing when opened up at wot, that the tq was so high that it started to twist the 42" diameter prop shafts (torque loaded just like a BRAVO) to the point they were going out of balance. It was said that it came back into the yards for mods and that it was re-propped with somethiing that wasn't so tall that would accelerate harder and top out at a speed more reasonable. If I think of anything else I will re-post, Smitty

Lofty

We've been on or around her many times and I can tell you the crews are allways offered condolences by other ships crews when boarding for deployment. She is well known for being problematic not only because of her age but complexity of systems. It's no surprise that she is being retired but I do wonder how much it will cost to be decomissioned. The USS Gerald Ford is close to completion and will replace her in the fleet.

Smitty I'm sure we passed at Alameda without knowing it, I cut my teeth there. I worked with a few of the contractors back in the Alameda days.

articfriends

iTrader: (1)

Lofty, I raced my 73 Firebird at Sears point a few times and tore the hell out of the roads thru oakland late at night quite a few times. I waited in line with Reggie Jackson at sears point waiting to test and tune once too. I used to have machine work done in Oakland at some rundown old place that did pefect machine work by a old guy we called "hans' not sure that was really his name but I'm sure he's been dead for 20 years now as he was old and falling apart in the late 80's, he had a old top fuel 392 laying in one corner and a aluminum block bbc that was some huge displacement (like 488) sitting there that was going in a late 70's road race looking T/A. I hated Ca as it was just so congested, crowded and exspensive, was sorta culture shock to me too. It would be different for Me today though, Smitty

diverkr

Did my initial carrier quals aboard the Big E in 2007, so that boat will always be special to me. Funny, the first time I ever was on an aircraft carrier was the day I landed on one.

Have a bunch of friends who have cruised on Enterprise. She is definitely ready for retirement. The government has already spent way too much money squeezing these last two deployments out of her.

sac

Wow, awesome post, I've been on her a few times at Alameda while I was stationed on the USS Hector repair ship 1977 thru 1982. She would be across the pier from us at times, what a sight!