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US Navy Sells 'Top Gun' Aircraft Carrier For One Penny
HughPickens.com writes Kitsap Sun reports at Military.com that the USS Ranger, a 1,050-foot-long, 56,000-ton Forrestal-class aircraft carrier, is being towed from the inactive ship maintenance facility at Puget Sound for a 3,400-mile, around-Cape Horn voyage to a Texas dismantler who acquired the Vietnam-era warship for a penny for scrap metal. "Under the contract, the company will be paid $0.01. The price reflects the net price proposed by International Shipbreaking, which considered the estimated proceeds from the sale of the scrap metal to be generated from dismantling," said officials for NAVSEA. "[One cent] is the lowest price the Navy could possibly have paid the contractor for towing and dismantling the ship."
The Ranger was commissioned Aug. 10, 1957, at Norfolk Naval Shipyard and decommissioned July 10, 1993, after more than 35 years of service. It was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on March 8, 2004, and redesignated for donation. After eight years on donation hold, the USS Ranger Foundation was unable to raise the funds to convert the ship into a museum or to overcome the physical obstacles of transporting the ship up the Columbia River to Fairview, Oregon. As a result, the Ranger was removed from the list of ships available for donation and designated for dismantling. The Navy, which can't retain inactive ships indefinitely, can't donate a vessel unless the application fully meets the Navy's minimum requirements. The Ranger had been in pristine condition, but for a week in August volunteers from other naval museums were allowed to remove items to improve their ships. The Ranger was in a slew of movies and television shows, including "The Six Million Dollar Man," "Flight of the Intruder" and "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" where it stood in for the USS Enterprise carrier. But the Ranger's most famous role was in the 1980's Tom Cruise hit, "Top Gun." "We would have liked to have seen it become a museum, but it just wasn't in the cards," Navy spokesman Chris Johnson told Fox. "But unfortunately, it is a difficult proposition to raise funds. The group that was going to collect donations had a $35 million budget plan but was only able to raise $100,000."
The Ranger was commissioned Aug. 10, 1957, at Norfolk Naval Shipyard and decommissioned July 10, 1993, after more than 35 years of service. It was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on March 8, 2004, and redesignated for donation. After eight years on donation hold, the USS Ranger Foundation was unable to raise the funds to convert the ship into a museum or to overcome the physical obstacles of transporting the ship up the Columbia River to Fairview, Oregon. As a result, the Ranger was removed from the list of ships available for donation and designated for dismantling. The Navy, which can't retain inactive ships indefinitely, can't donate a vessel unless the application fully meets the Navy's minimum requirements. The Ranger had been in pristine condition, but for a week in August volunteers from other naval museums were allowed to remove items to improve their ships. The Ranger was in a slew of movies and television shows, including "The Six Million Dollar Man," "Flight of the Intruder" and "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" where it stood in for the USS Enterprise carrier. But the Ranger's most famous role was in the 1980's Tom Cruise hit, "Top Gun." "We would have liked to have seen it become a museum, but it just wasn't in the cards," Navy spokesman Chris Johnson told Fox. "But unfortunately, it is a difficult proposition to raise funds. The group that was going to collect donations had a $35 million budget plan but was only able to raise $100,000."
Correction: Navy *pays* a company $0.01 to a company for the service of removing it and dismantling it.
It didn't sell anything.
Kid-proof tablet..
So they got the price of an aircraft carrier wrong by 2 pennies. No big deal.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt00...
A historic ship both in the actual theater of war and in the movie memories of the general public, in pristine condition and one penny is the best they can do, for a gross weight of 56000 TONS??
First, the Navy tried for many years to interest groups with the idea of turning it into a museum, but no one could come up with tho money to fund such a project.
Second, there are considerable problems that have to be mitigated when breakining up such a ship. They can't just sell it to some third world country where it would be "beached" and dismantled by locals in an environmentally hazardous way. The ship almost certainly contains many tons of hazardous materials such as asbestos, and various noxious fluids, all of which must be safely removed and disposed of.
Third, where ever it is disposed of, it has to be towed there, not an insignificant expense.
The Navy got a deal spaying one cent to dispose of it.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Hah! The Navy has no manpower any more; certainly not for construction and demolition. The Navy doesn't build aircraft carriers; why should they dismantle them? Everything that is done except direct warfighting and readiness for warfighting is farmed out.
On August 14 1945, the Navy had in active service 23 battleships, 28 fleet carriers, 71 escort carriers, 72 cruisers, 377 destroyers, 361 frigates, and 232 subs: a total of 6786 ships, including auxiliaries. The total personnel strength was 3.4 million. Uniformed personnel cooked the meals, drove the trucks, loaded ammunition and fueled the ships, etc.
On September 30 2006, the Navy had 0 battleships, 12 carriers, 27 cruisers, 54 destroyers, 35 frigates, and 74 subs: a total of 318 ships including auxiliaries. The total personnel strength was 0.35 million. Meals, truck driving, loading and fueling, etc, are all performed by hired service companies - just like for the Army and doubtless the Air Force (not entirely sure about the Marines, but probably them too).
The size has shrunk considerably since 2006. This despite having twice the national population to draw upon. The Navy can barely man its ships, let alone sparing "manpower" for non-essential tasks. And just like the merchant marine, knowledge, specialties, and capabilities have been cut way back. There are no more hundreds of sailors manning the engine rooms in large ships. The engines are automated.
On August 14 1945, the Navy had in active service 23 battleships, 28 fleet carriers, 71 escort carriers, 72 cruisers, 377 destroyers, 361 frigates, and 232 subs: a total of 6786 ships, including auxiliaries. The total personnel strength was 3.4 million.
Imagine that, we had a shitload of active warships and manpower in the US Navy fourteen days prior to the surrender of Japan during WWII. That was almost 4 years after Pearl Harbor. What was the US Navy looking like in 1939? Nowhere near what it was at the end of the Pacific campaign.
On September 30 2006, the Navy had 0 battleships, 12 carriers, 27 cruisers, 54 destroyers, 35 frigates, and 74 subs: a total of 318 ships including auxiliaries. The total personnel strength was 0.35 million.
And what was the destructive capacity of the Navy in 2006 compared to August 1945? Hell, one Ohio class submarine has more destructive capacity than the entire Navy from 1945. As cool as battleships are, they are a relic and have no real function in the current military. A single carrier group from the current Nimitz class could obliterate all 28 fleet carriers and support ships before they even knew what had happened. Technology has made the requirement for massive amounts of ships meaningless. The amount of manpower is also significantly reduced. You also can't compare the necessary number of ships during a massive multi-year war to post cold war times. Iraq, Afghanistan, etc are regional conflicts at best and not even against the country itself. Massive amounts of firepower are generally not wise when fighting insurgents. You don't carpet bomb an entire village when there are only 4 hostiles in it. .
The size has shrunk considerably since 2006. This despite having twice the national population to draw upon. The Navy can barely man its ships, let alone sparing "manpower" for non-essential tasks. And just like the merchant marine, knowledge, specialties, and capabilities have been cut way back. There are no more hundreds of sailors manning the engine rooms in large ships. The engines are automated.
The cold war is over and the US is not at war with any large governments any longer. Why would you want more men when the ships have become more efficient and have so much more firepower? Look at the number of men in the Iraqi military compared to the US. How did those superior numbers work out for them? In the case of carriers they are also nuclear. You don't need men to shovel coal into boilers any longer either.
These ships are not cheap to maintain, even in museum status. The battleship U.S.S. Massachusetts, berthed at Battleship Cove, costs over $1M per year to keep in presentable and safe condition for tourists, keep the lights and ventilation on, etc.., and that doesn't count the significant volunteer work that is done for free.The pier built for it was something over $10M IIRC. That's all for a ship that doesn't go anywhere anymore. It just sits and floats. I believe Battleship Cove was offered the U.S.S. JFK (Enterprise(?) class nuclear carrier), but they simply could not afford to build the proper pier structure for a ship of that size, never mind the annual upkeep.
Just sitting in the water takes a big toll on these vessels. They need hull maintenance and paint regularly. Their hulls wear thin over the years due to corrosion, and periodic corrosion removal and repainting. If you just left them to the weather and never maintained the hulls they'd probably rot through and sink in a few decades.
Left MS Windows for Linux Mint and never looked back!
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Old 'useta was' "O-Level" AT2 from VAQ-131 here. When I was on the Ranger I heard it got four yards to the gallon. We maintained the avionics of the Prowler, arguably the most important aircraft on board (at least the most expensive). They put us ("airdales" - not "real" Navy) up in an old "drying room" (the AT shop). I could go on and on about how miserable I and my peers were for those five+ years of moist hell but this isn't the place.
That was in the late 80's. You could hardly go down a corridor without there being at least one angleiron bracket for something no longer used or present sticking out, with seven coats of paint on everything. The cats caught fire daily - I almost got to the point of ignoring the alarms. Never did figure out where all the dirt came from - thought they might have brought dumptrucks of it on board the hangar deck and spread it out before we deployed. A peer had those contact lenses he normally had to remove monthly but on the Ranger he had to do it daily. Took several hours (days) of bathing "back at the rock" to finally wash the boat off. I remember sweating through my boots and one of the worst cases of athelete's foot ever. Taking so many aspirin to keep the pain tolerable my ears rang. Launch noise that vibrated your fillings. JP5 or saltwater (!??) in the water supply.
It was a very sad day for me when I met the USS Ranger. Still, you'd think there would be a fortune in steel there. It was a floating metal city of five thousand people once. You'd think it could be repurposed for something.
--CF