Friday, May 09, 2014

ex-Saratoga going down.

Following in the wake of ex-Forrestal, CV-60, ex-Saratoga, will be on her way to the breakers' yard soon.

Legendary aircraft carrier USS Saratoga to sail off to scrapyard in 1-cent deal

Personally, I'd be more than willing to give the Navy two cents for her, then anchor her offshore outside the 12-mile limit and declare her to be my own sovereign kingdom. The flight deck would be optimized for Cessna 172 operations and the crew would be hand-selected from the ranks of America's hottest pro-freedom Amazons.

Yeah, that'd work for me, and it'd be a better end for such a fine ship than a ditch on the Texas/Mexican border where swarms of low-wage workers hack her up for the metal.

I'll be watching for Saratoga's departure. The dogs and I may have to make a flight up there to pay our respects.
Saratoga (right) next to Forrestal (left). A lot of Naval history there, soon to be just so much scrap steel.


Hey Old AF Sarge, you game for a photo flight?

6 comments:

  1. Sad end, but better than being sunk for a reef... And it's another underlying pointer to the malaise that is happening in the states...

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  2. Such is the way of all but a very few machines. :(

    I'm off to hug a Springfield M1903 and tell it everything's going to be okay.

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  3. Kin you get a long enough anchor chain for that?

    How deep is it 12 miles offshore?

    I wanna come visit. How do I get a visa to Murpysland?

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  4. Anonymous2:15 AM

    Very Sad

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  5. I sailed on both of these ships. I have to say the demise of the Saratoga does not bother me at all. The Forrestal was an OK ship but prone to fires - all the time. It was called "Fireball 59", or USS Zippo. The Saratoga was known to many of her prisoners as the "Sucking Sixty from Dixie". She had a perpetual crack in the hull and not enough water for the top half of the ship. A/C never worked. Hard to sleep at 110 degrees. Both ships got the job of flying planes done, but they sure made if tough on the crew. The USS Kennedy (another non-nuclear carrier) was far superior to the Forrestal and Saratoga. I was sad to see her inactivated.

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