Jim wrote:
I have seen some of the decisions made on carrier retirements and can only
wonder who REALLY determines which carrier goes and which stay.

Case in point... The America (CVA-66) was decommissioned in 1996 - before
Independence (CVA-62) decommissioned 1998, Kitty Hawk (CVA-63) (still in
service), Constellation (CVA-64) decommissioned in 2003, and Enterprise
(CVA-65) still in service.

The official reason was that the overall condition was worth that the others
mentioned but I was on both the Kitty and America in 71-72 and she wasn't in
better shape than at that time. Seemed to many that the decision was very
political.

However your time on those ships was over twenty years before the
decision on which ship to decommission was made. By the mid 1990's the
Kitty Hawk, Constellation and the Independence had already been through
their SLEP rebuilds. The America on the other hand was the oldest CV
that still needed to be SLEPed. The Forestal was also decommissioned
about the same period while in the middle of her SLEP.

In fact the poor material condition of the America was a bit of a
scandal back in the early 1990's. I remember a long article in US News
about how bad he condition was back then.

ALV


While other carrieres were considered for donation as museams - America was
sunk to determine how much damage it would take to sink a modern carrier.
Didn't even get a chance to be an artifical reef.

At least the Bunker Hill will live on doing something useful.