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from the but-will-the-next-one-have-phasers? dept.
The aircraft carrier, USS Enterprise (CVN 65) , was decommissioned during a ceremony held in the ship's hangar bay, Feb. 3. The ceremony not only marked the end the ship's nearly 55-year career, it also served as the very first decommissioning of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. Capt. Todd Beltz, commanding officer of the Enterprise, addressed the ship's company, former commanding officers and distinguished visitors and spoke of where the true spirit of "The Big E" comes from. "For all that Enterprise represents to this nation, it's the people that bring this ship to life," said Beltz. "So as I stand in this ship that we all care so much about, I feel it's appropriate to underscore the contributions of the thousands of Sailors and individuals that kept this ship alive and made its reputation. We are 'The Big E.'"
Enterprise was the eighth naval vessel to carry the name. It was built by the Newport News Shipbuilding Co. and was christened Sep. 24, 1960, by Mrs. Bertha Irene Franke, wife of former Secretary of the Navy William B. Franke. The ship was put to sea in 1961 and safely steamed more than 1 million nautical miles on nuclear power over its entire career of more than 50 years.
CVN-80, a Gerald R Ford class aircraft carrier, is scheduled to begin construction in 2018, be delivered by 2025, and be in operation by 2027. She is tentatively slated to be named the USS Enterprise and will replace the USS Nimitz, currently the oldest US aircraft carrier still in service.
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Related Video:
http://www.navy.mil/viewVideoDVIDS.asp?id=49&story_id=98707
(Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Monday February 06 2017, @04:27AM
Um, no. For building new ships, you can speculate that way all you like. But the Enterprise is over a half-century old now. It's really ready for the scrap heap. Refitting it and making it safe to keep using would easily cost more money than just building a replacement, and the replacement's going to be better anyway. It's just like old cars: it's always way more expensive to keep an ancient car running than to just go buy a new one. The parts are difficult or impossible to find, the engineering isn't as good, servicing is more difficult, etc.
Also, the Enterprise was the first nuclear aircraft carrier. It isn't nearly as well-designed as later carriers; they were still learning. Instead of 2 big reactors like on a Nimitz-class carrier, they used 8 tiny little submarine reactors. So much more manpower to keep running, more stuff to go wrong, plus these are ancient reactor designs.
Scrapping this thing and replacing it with a Ford-class carrier makes total sense from an engineering and operations point-of-view.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 06 2017, @05:27AM
100% Correct.
The Ford carriers are an improvement over the Enterprise in every way.
The Big E was an experiment (which is why only one was made). The Nimitz carriers were a HUGE improvement. They can do more and cost less to operate. Not one reason to keep CVN-65 around.