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| Carrier USS Kennedy to be decommissioned |
| 2007-03-23 |
| The last ship my grandfather helped build (though not the last in service - USS Enterprise lives yet.) MAYPORT, Fla. - Sailors hung flags and banners and cleaned and removed equipment as they prepared the aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy for its last hurrah Friday. "Big John" is being decommissioned after nearly 40 years of service. The ship was christened in May 1967 by Kennedy's then 9-year-old daughter, Caroline, and entered Navy service the next year. The cabin will be headed to a Navy museum. The carrier will be towed to Philadelphia, where it will be placed on inactive status. One of two remaining fossil fuel-powered aircraft carriers in the Navy, ... What's the other one? This is undoubtedly the key reason for its retirement. ... the ship supported Operation Desert Shield in Iraq in 1990, and was deployed in February 2002 to the North Arabian Sea during Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. It also supported Operation Iraqi Freedom in June 2004, and its airwing dropped more than 54,000 pounds of bombs on Iraq. The Kennedy, based in Florida since 1995, recently served as a training platform for Navy pilots to obtain carrier landing qualification. A duty WW II carrier Lexington performed until ~15 years ago? The Navy suspended the ship's flight operations about a year ago, citing faulty landing equipment. (Not repaired or maintained due to scheduled decommissioning - sort of like Walter Reed Medical Center.) |
| Posted by:Glenmore |
| #12 An aircraft carrier will be using huge amounts of oil even if it has nuclear power plant. Yes, but we're talking bunker fuel in addition to aircraft fuel. That is a very large amount of fuel to take on - try around 4 hours of alongside refueling time. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2007-03-23 23:16 |
| #11 There is another reason the USN is ditching its old ships instead of mothballing them. Congress invariably says, "Instead of your getting *new* ships, we will just pay for refitting rust buckets." That doesn't work if the old ships are now working as fish hatcheries. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-03-23 18:18 |
| #10 A ship that size uses a huge ammount of oil so it has to have oilers with it. An aircraft carrier will be using huge amounts of oil even if it has nuclear power plant. |
| Posted by: JFM 2007-03-23 18:16 |
| #9 A ship that size uses a huge ammount of oil so it has to have oilers with it. The oilers are very vulnerable plus the maintenance on the burners, boilers, etc. is also very large. The JFK did it's duty. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2007-03-23 17:41 |
| #8 Sinse, Carriers are hideously expensive in both terms of costs to operate and manpower to run them. JFK was more so than most on both counts - she had been ordered as a nuclear carrier but Robert MacNamara ordered her built as a conventional ship to save money. That meant more men than most CVs and higher mainetnance costs, because of her conversion she was always a maintenance problem. On top of all that, in recent years JFK gained a reputation as a problem ship - right around 911, she was in such bad shape that the words 'near derelict' were used to describe her. (Her half-sister USS America was almost as bad) It was only through the superhuman efforts of her skipper and crew that she's held on this long. She is a very tired ship that has served her country well. She'll be replaced by the George Bush, and this should be the last carrier to go before Enterprise and Kitty Hawk around 2010. Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2007-03-23 14:34 |
| #7 why are we decommisions shitps when then WOT keeps growing around the world? |
| Posted by: sinse 2007-03-23 12:17 |
| #6 JFM: Scary thought, though if anyone could reprogram Ted Kennedy's brain, my money would be on the Hindu computer geeks. (Never, ever, bet against the Hindu computer geeks.) |
| Posted by: Mike 2007-03-23 11:21 |
| #5 JFM: There are limits to science. And I think we would all agree that the last thing anyone would want would be a cyborg FRK (Fat Rich Kid). |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-03-23 10:59 |
| #4 LOL! |
| Posted by: Seafarious 2007-03-23 10:54 |
| #3 I still think it would be a lot better idea to sell the Kennedy to India, for them to reverse engineer to design their own carriers. Better to send them Senator Kennedy for reverse engineering. |
| Posted by: JFM 2007-03-23 10:51 |
| #2 Kitty Hawk's the only oil burner left, based out of Yokasuka. Due to be replaced by the George Washington next year. Got a chance to tour JFK when it was up here a few weeks ago. Well worth the 3 hour wait. There's already noise about getting it back up here as an exhibit, maybe at the JFK Library ( that'd take A LOT of dredging) or someplace else on the waterfront. |
| Posted by: tu3031 2007-03-23 10:36 |
| #1 I still think it would be a lot better idea to sell the Kennedy to India, for them to reverse engineer to design their own carriers. It would be a big jump for their technology, but no threat to us, as we are two generations ahead of that technology. It would, however, put tremendous pressure on China, who can't match the Kennedy's technology, and would put a major crimp in their plans to dominate the western Pacific and Indian oceans. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-03-23 10:08 |