The Navy plans to decide by late 2022 how to dispose of the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and likely will turn to the private sector for help, documents show.
The former USS Enterprise, now rusted and gutted, sits pier-side at Huntington Ingalls Newport News shipyard, where it was built and launched amid great fanfare more than 50 years ago.
It remains to be seen whether HII will be involved in disposal of the Big E. The Navy has scheduled a public meeting June 18 in Newport News to hear comments on different options as it develops an environmental impact statement.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump told U.S. troops stationed in Japan he plans to order traditional steam powered catapults aboard American warships instead of newer electromagnetic systems that he said may not work as well during wartime.
Russia's sole aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, in the English Channel in October 2016. (Dover-Marina.com via The New York Times)
The years have not been kind to Russia's sole, geriatric aircraft carrier.
Followed by billowing black smoke and massive tugboats wherever it goes, Admiral Kuznetsov has long been an object of derision in the defense commentary sphere.
The usual sense of levity accompanying Admiral Kuznetsov coverage turned to tragedy in 2018, when a 70-ton crane smashed into the carrier's hull. Almost as devastating as the considerable damage to the carrier itself was the loss of PD-50, Kuznetsov's floating drydock that sank from the blow's impact. The 2018 drydock disaster spawned a deluge of articles speculating as to Kuznetsov's fate, with many predicting its long-awaited decommission.
It appears, however, that the Russian Navy is refusing to throw in the towel.
Russia wants to build its first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, Russian state media reported Tuesday, citing unnamed sources in the shipbuilding industry.
The carrier, a source told TASS, "will have a nuclear energy unit and displacement of about 70,000 [metric tons]," which would make it smaller than U.S. carriers but still larger than Russia's sole aircraft carrier, the steam-powered Admiral Kuznetsov, which suffered a devastating accident last fall.
A satellite image shows what appears to be the construction of a third Chinese aircraft carrier at the Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai, China April 17, 2019. CSIS/ChinaPower/Maxar Technologies 2019/Handout via REUTERS
HONG KONG/BEIJING(Reuters) - Construction of China's first full-sized aircraft carrier is well under way, according to satellite images obtained and analyzed by a U.S. think tank.
A satellite image shows what appears to be the construction of a third Chinese aircraft carrier at the Jiangnan Shipyard in Shanghai, China April 17, 2019. (Reuters/CSIS/ChinaPower/Maxar Technologies 2019)
HONG KONG/BEIJING(Reuters) - Construction of China's first full-sized aircraft carrier is well under way, according to satellite images obtained and analyzed by a U.S. think tank.
The images from April, provided to Reuters by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, reveal considerable recent activity during the last six months on a large vessel at the Jiangnan shipyard outside Shanghai.
