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Navy To Auction Stealth Ship
First time accepted submitter Sparticus789 writes "Looks like the Navy is doing some housecleaning and selling off failed experiments, 'Yup, the Lockheed Martin-built Sea Shadow is being auctioned off from its home in the Suisun Bay ghost fleet in California.' Bidding is right now at $100,000 and it even comes with the dock. Don't get your hopes up of an evil hideout, the fine print says 'The ex-sea shadow shall be disposed of by completely dismantling and scrapping within the U.S.A."
And if it's a "failed experiment" why the requirement to dismantle? If all it is is a curious looking ship, who cares what happens to it after it leaves the Navy's hands?
This sounds more like something you'd do with a successful prototype that nevertheless was not militarily useful due to factors relating to the fact that it is a prototype and not a full blown warship....
Unless crippling bureaucracy prevents taking the sensible option, of course....
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Go and read Ben Rich's Skunk Works for the history of the Sea Shadow. Lockheed-Martin developed this one on their own and the Navy rejected the design because it didn't look like a ship an admiral would be seen dead in. Like the Royal Navy still insisting on sails and sail drill in the mid to latter days of steam.
As far as their stealth was concerned, Skunk Works had to increase the radar reflectivity profile because the effect was so good, it appeared as a flat line against the shifting waves on radar and was visible as a result.
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Exactly, the Navy scraps boats all the time, not a big deal. What DOES piss me off about the military is how many old choppers and warbirds we have wrapped in plastic out at the boneyard. Now if it is useful for parts then yes, i can see it, but frankly all those early to late 60s choppers and warbirds are so hopelessly out of date the military is never gonna want to fly those again and they would fetch a damned good price on the civilian market. the huey is still used quite a bit today by civilian pilots and of course old warbirds are seriously prized by collectors. Oh and before anyone says some third world country would buy them...so what? Frankly you can buy better birds from Russia that aren't nearly as out of date and as we saw in desert storm without top notch pilots you get another turkey shoot anyway, not to mention we know exactly how these old birds handle and what their weaknesses were.
When we are drowning in red ink its just retarded to let billions of dollars worth of aircraft just sit and rot out in the desert when they could fetch good money on the civilian market. We should sell a few to test the waters and then if they fetch good prices then see about selling more. i know this won't take away the debt but every little bit helps and they certainly aren't doing us any good wrapped in plastic out in the desert. Hell you could even give a discount to small hospitals on the choppers for those that don't have lifeflight and might even save some lives, better than just letting them rot.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.