Goodbye USS Kitty Hawk. You deserve better than the scrap yard.

[Spartan303]

The U.S. Navy's USS Kitty Hawk headed through the waters of Sinclair Inlet and Rich Passage Saturday — and into the mists of history as it departed its longtime portage in Bremerton to a Texas ship scrapyard.

USS Kitty Hawk bids farewell | Kitsap Daily News

Iconic aircraft carrier towed through Rich Passage into the mists of history

www.kitsapdailynews.com

I thought there would be more news on this. Attached is a video on the subject. She was a good ship for her day but hasn't been in service since 2009. Sadly the bid to turn her into a museum didn't pan out and she was sold for like 1 cent to be scrapped.

The USS Kitty Hawk embarked on its final voyage to be broken down for scrap metal while veteran sailors wait for pieces of their beloved "Battle Cat" to begin showing up on EBay.

The conventionally powered aircraft carrier, the last of its kind, set off from Naval Base Kitsap in Washington after the US Navy sold it to a scrap dealer for 1 cent.

Honestly, it sounds a bit insulting.

Aircraft carrier sold for 1 cent headed to eBay after Navy rejects $5m museum bid

USS Kitty Hawk veterans are waiting to buy pieces of the warship on eBay before it’s lost to history

www.independent.co.uk

What are your thoughts?

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Not the first super carrier to be sold for a cent to scrapyard. And yeah it's a shame that we won't be able to save a single super carrier

 

[Husky_Khan]

Wow... had to look it up.

Here's a non-paywalled article from last October talking about it.

Sale of Last Conventional Supercarriers Deals Final Blow To Museum Hopes - USNI News

When James Melka first approached USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63), he had no idea the size of the aircraft carrier. As the 17-year-old walked toward the pier in 1965, he could see the big gray ship, growing larger as he approached. It was “amazing” to walk onto the ship, then just four years into its...

news.usni.org

 

[Free-Stater 101]

Suprised they didnt offer it to Ukraine just to give the Russians the finger.

 

[Spartan303]

Wow... had to look it up.

Here's a non-paywalled article from last October talking about it.

Sale of Last Conventional Supercarriers Deals Final Blow To Museum Hopes - USNI News

When James Melka first approached USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63), he had no idea the size of the aircraft carrier. As the 17-year-old walked toward the pier in 1965, he could see the big gray ship, growing larger as he approached. It was “amazing” to walk onto the ship, then just four years into its...

news.usni.org

The linked articles shouldn't have a paywall.

Suprised they didnt offer it to Ukraine just to give the Russians the finger.

She's in such poor condition that it would be a waste of money, hence why she's not mothballed.

 

[BlackDragon98]

Why did they sell it for only a cent?

It's a conventionally powered carrier, not a radiation saturated nuclear nightmare.

The steel alone would be worthy at least a million.

Has USN high command been drinking "red paint" these days?

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Why did they sell it for only a cent?

It's a conventionally powered carrier, not a radiation saturated nuclear nightmare.

The steel alone would be worthy at least a million.

Has USN high command been drinking "red paint" these days?

It's more like the scrapyard that scraps carriers in Brownsville is basically it doing for tax exemption reasons since due to the era when said ships were made they have all sorts of nasty toxic materials in them and thus costs a lot.

 

[bintananth]

It's more like the scrapyard that scraps carriers in Brownsville is basically it doing for tax exemption reasons since due to the era when said ships were made they have all sorts of nasty toxic materials in them and thus costs a lot.

She was lauched in 1960.

I don't want to think about just how much asbestos is attached to all of her steam lines or how much it will cost to get rid of it.

That's just one bit of unhealthy nastyness. I've worked on a project where the floor tiles could not be removed or damaged because asbesdos abatement would break the budget.

 

[Agent23]

Suprised they didnt offer it to Ukraine just to give the Russians the finger.

Ukraine would have tried to sell it to China.

 

[Bacle]

Kinda surprised they didn't turn her into a reef via a sink-ex.

But there may be too much hazmat stuff like asbestos built into the ship to make it safe to make into a reef habitat.

 

[Free-Stater 101]

Ukraine would have tried to sell it to China.

The U.S. isn't stupid, after the Korean war we gave many countries our surplus of weapons and gave strict conditions that when they were to returned to the U.S. for destruction or refurbishment when they lacked use. in fact, a majority of M1 Garands in the U.S. now being sold through the CMP are refurbished returns and they have stockpile of over a few hundred thousand to a million rifles.

That and the fact that selling an aircraft carrier is pretty damn hard to hide and the Turkish strait can be closed and NATO is Ukraine's only hope, so they wouldn't piss off the U.S. by selling an aircraft carrier gifted with strict conditions of ownership.

 

[bintananth]

Kinda surprised they didn't turn her into a reef via a sink-ex.

But there may be too much hazmat stuff like asbestos built into the ship to make it safe to make into a reef habitat.

I've seen the blueprints for this:

It was built in 1963. There is so much asbesdos in the concrete that it can't be demolished without closing I-64 in St. Louis for quite some time because you can see it while driving I-64 through St. Louis.

 

[Agent23]

I've seen the blueprints for this:

It was built in 1963. There is so much asbesdos in the concrete that it can't be demolished without closing I-64 in St. Louis for quite some time because you can see it while driving I-64 through St. Louis.

Let me guess, it just sits there, vacant?

 

[bintananth]

Let me guess, it just sits there, vacant?

No. It's still in use and connected to the St. Louis Children's Museum located on the other side of I-64.

McDonnell Planetarium – Saint Louis Science Center

Discover the James S. McDonnell Planetarium's opto-mechanical star projector, 80-foot dome, interactive star shows and astronomy exhibits.

www.slsc.org

 

[Agent23]

No. It's still in use and connected to the St. Louis Children's Museum located on the other side of I-64.

McDonnell Planetarium – Saint Louis Science Center

Discover the James S. McDonnell Planetarium's opto-mechanical star projector, 80-foot dome, interactive star shows and astronomy exhibits.

www.slsc.org

Sounds healthy.

 

[bintananth]

Sounds healthy.

It's safe as long as you don't disturb the concrete. If you have to do that you better know what you're doing and evacuate the building beforehand.

 

[Agent23]

It's safe as long as you don't disturb the concrete. If you have to do that you better know what you're doing and evacuate the building beforehand.

Personally I'd use it for a storage facility, preferably for long retention documents, not a high traffic public building.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Asbestos is funny that way. Once it's actually in place it's perfectly safe and will stay safe for decades. It's just highly risky during installation or removal, so with asbestos structures the safest thing is to leave it there and keep the building properly maintained so that the asbestos stays put.

 

[bintananth]

Asbestos is funny that way. Once it's actually in place it's perfectly safe and will stay safe for decades. It's just highly risky during installation or removal, so with asbestos structures the safest thing is to leave it there and keep the building properly maintained so that the asbestos stays put.

Yeah, asbestos is fine when it's not airborne. Once it becomes airborne it's lung cancer fog and worse. I vaguely recall a National Geographic article describing what it does which included a picture taken via a microscope of a white blood cell trying and failing to deal with it.

 

[Harlock]

As a small aside Kitty Hawk was one of the few USN ships to have an escalator, two in fact. They were first put in on Essex class ships after refit because they ended up putting the pilot ready rooms deep in the ship which meant they had a long climb to the flight deck. Coupled with this the jet age meant pilots ended up carrying more bulky gear and equipment as part of their flight kit.

So escalators were put in as the solution and the early Cold War carriers had them. Unfortunately long escalators are pretty rigid and didn't have much give when the ship hit rough weather. They tended to break down a lot so were discontinued on the Nuke carriers