Beginning of the End for ‘Big E’
Announced today:
Northrop Grumman Newport News, Newport News, Va., was awarded a $20,669,181 cost-plus-fixed-fee contract on June 25, 2007, for core team and continuous maintenance planning, Extended Dry-docking Selected Restricted Availability planning, hull planning yard services, execution of continuous maintenance, and inactivation planning for USS Enterprise (CVN 65).This contract allows for the necessary planning, alterations, maintenance, repairs and routine work to enable USS Enterprise to continue mission capability until the end of the ship’s service life. Work will be performed in Newport News, Va. (66.6 percent) and Norfolk, Va. (33.4 percent), and is expected to be completed by September 2011.Contract funds in the amount of $20,669,181 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year.The contract was not competitively procured.The Supervisor of Shipbuilding, Conversion and Repair, USN, Newport News, Va., is the contracting activity (N62793-07-C-0001).
Decommissioning and scrapping a CVN – that should be fun. I went through Baltimore a few times a year in the early 1990s, and every time there was a little bit less of Coral Sea there by the interstate. But she took an awful long time to dismantle, and she wasn’t nearly as big as Enterprise.ÿ
AndI can remeber you bitching about how much it cost to due a refuel on her……………..a long time ago and a galaxy far away.
Thinking about the Enterprise being decommed makes me thing hard about my own decommisioning. Seeing her on the cover of Natinonal Geographic making operation Sea Orbit was one of the tings that pointed me towards the Navy.
Greetings from Canberra! No worries mate!
Yep – and still feel the same way. One-off’s are exceptionally expensive to maintain over their life-cycle and Enterprise, wth her unique configurations all around, was just so. As was CORAL SEA too (which in 1989 consumed 46% of AIRLANT’s operating budget – all by herself). That said, she still is a remarkable ship and has borne the name proudly and yes, part of me will be sad to see her go having time and traps aboard her as well. The very last trap, in fact, for the Steeljaws was onbd Enterprise and my underway
beating,punishment, training as ‘gator was aboard her as well.– SJS
Sad to see that it will eventually happen. A close friend in the reserves has just been deployed to the Enterprise for 5 months. As well, my cousin was a JAG aboard her back in the sixties…….one or two cruises off the coast of Nam.