US sells carriers USS Kitty Hawk and John F Kennedy for 1 cent each

[Video Mixdown]

Originally Posted by LTCTerry

Mixdown - maybe more than your asked for

​​​​​​Not at all - fascinating stuff thanks. I've seen accounts of vessels under tow being conned to prevent wind and waves causing them to spear off in the wrong direction, but they were mainly emergencies or rescues rather than planned tows. I'm sure L'Aviateur is correct in saying that it would be unnecessary for an operation of this type.

[tdracer]

I have a soft spot for the Kitty Hawk class carriers. As part of the Univ. of Washington Alumni band, I took the sister ship USS America from Everett to Seattle ~25 years ago as part of the annual Seattle "Seafair" celebration. After we arrived in Seattle, the parked the carrier off the waterfront and did flight ops in front of the on-board crowd, as well as those on-shore (flight operations were obviously limited since we were stationary with no wind over the deck). During the trip we had largely free rein of the ship (including lunch in the galley) and numerous aircraft and weapons displays on the hangar deck. Great stuff - one of my most memorial experiences.
USS America was decommissions short after that, and then intentionally sunk about 10 years ago as part of a study of effects of various combat damage on a large carrier.

[Barksdale Boy]

I'm very sad to learn that the "Hawk" is to be scrapped. Of all the US carriers that I've been lucky enough to visit she was my favourite. I vividly remember once having lunch on board and because of a seating plan error I was sat next to Admiral Dennis Blair, undoubtedly one of the most impressive people I've ever met. We talked mainly about baseball (there was a players' strike on at the time) and cricket (he had been a Rhodes Scholar). I mentioned that I really liked the old-school feel of the wardroom. He replied that no captain would dare to change it and pointed to an old photograph on the wall as proof of this. He said, "Look who's sitting in the same seat as you". It was JFK - a huge thrill for me! The liberty boat taking us back to Hong Kong Island was late for some reason and the young ensign in command nervously blurted out a torrent of reasons for this, to which the admiral replied, "Just get me to Wanchai, son".

[WE Branch Fanatic]

Originally Posted by LTCTerry

I was a SWO with an interest in aviation. I knew enough about timing, logistics, flying, navigation, and math to pick up building a daily air plan pretty quickly. My boss was an A-6 pilot and his deputy an A-6 bombardier/navigator.

You may or may not be interested in the Future Carrier thread, which Asturias56 mentioned - 320 pages (at the moment) about the RN's struggle to retain, and then to rebuild a credible capability.

You might be interested in this discussion on another defence orientated site: Late 1970s US Congress Report - The US Sea Control Mission (carriers needed in the Atlantic)

The contributions of ECMO1 - a former US Navy EA-6B EMCO wwith a huge amount of experience of carrier operations, are particularly interesting, and are a refreshing change to the view frequently expressed by the media that the carrier (and group) exists solely to hit targets ashore.