An American icon quietly drifts into retirement. RIP USS Enterprise(CVN-65)

HighlanderNorth

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I didnt even hear about this on the news, and the only reason I found about the early retirement of the USS Enterprise was because I looked up a spec on the internet, and discovered she was just retired(deactivated) on December 1st, 2012. Her last deployment ended Nov 04. The official decommissioning wont happen til early next year after the reactor is removed.

The USS Enterprise was the worlds first ever nuclear powered aircraft carrier, and one of the very 1st ever nuclear powered ships of any type. Its nearly a 1/4 mile long at 1,123 feet(342 meters). Its reactors ran steam boilers that developed 280,000 horsepower, which is actually 20,000 horsepower more than the much newer Nimitz class fleet carriers. Its also longer. Top speed was a fast 38mph(33.6 knots, which is also faster than the Nimitz). A standard crew was 5,828 sailors, marines, pilots and air crew. A small floating city! She could carry up to 90 modern aircraft. She weighed 95,000 tons....

It was ordered way back in 1957, just 12 years after world war 2, while we were still in the middle of building and commissioning the non-nuclear Kitty Hawk class carriers, all of which were retired long ago! She was commissioned in 1961, not long after JFK was sworn into office. Thats a career of 51 years!

Of course she was named after the WWII era USS Enterprise(CV-6), the most decorated naval ship in US history, and the only pre-WW II carrier that wasnt sunk during the war. But the newer USS Enterprise weighed in at nearly 4 times as much as her predecessor! The fictional USS Enterprise's of Star Trek fame were named after this class.

She participated in pretty much every major naval/military event in over 50 years, including the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, where she was the primary carrier among several carriers. Although there were supposed to be 6 Enterprise class carriers, costs ballooned, and money was tight all around at that time, so only the class' namesake was ever built. But as a taxpayer, I'd say we got our money's worth!

She was the oldest commissioned warship in US history, next to the wooden hulled 18th century USS Constitution, which is only commissioned for historic reasons. She was retired a couple years early due to cutbacks in spending. There is already slated a replacement USS Enterprise(CVN-80) which will be a newer Gerald Ford class carrier, the replacement for the Nimitz class, but that wont happen til 2025, but I kinda have my doubts the way things are shaping up now.

Anyway, tens of thousands of US military members served their duty on board this ship, and there should have been more coverage of this, but there wasnt, so I thought I'd at least start a forum thread as a reminder...... A fond farewell to the Big E! :)
 
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moldyoldy

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The Aircraft Carrier USS Enterprise was the 7th, possibly the 8th US naval vessel to carry the name "Enterprise".

For a perspective on where the USS Enterprise resides in history:

The Enterprise itself, per the US Navy:

http://www.public.navy.mil/airfor/enterprise/Documents/Enterprise/public_relations.html

A US Navy perspective on active carriers:

http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=4200&tid=200&ct=4


A list of all carriers of the US Navy:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_of_the_United_States_Navy

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Although I have no connection to the USS Enterprise CVN-65, one of my ex-mil friends served on the USS America CVN-66 off Vietnam as an A/C mechanic. He was the first one to mention "100 MPH duct tape" which I later heard from a chopper pilot as well. The idea was that A/C usually returned from missions with holes in them. So the mechanics checked to see what the damage was, if nothing bothersome, they slapped a strip of 100mph duct tape over the holes and sent the A/C back out again. Since the A/C usually did not go supersonic, unless bounced by MIGs, that duct tape held fairly well....
 
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