US Military News, Reports, Data, etc.

Jura said:

I wonder how big is the field of regard (it depends, I know, but that article just says "long-range"), thanks

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bd popeye said:

I'm sure the information you seek is classified. The US military will only let you know so much.

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bd popeye said:

I'm sure the information you seek is classified. The US military will only let you know so much.

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Pirate IRST said:

The range of the system is between 50 and 80 kilometers, but could reach up to 150 kilometres. The identification of the target can be derived from more than 40 kilometers. However, weather conditions significantly influences the performance of infrared-based target search and tracking.

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Her final voyage: Navy's first super-carrier arrives in Texas to be scrapped after being sold for ONE CENT

The Navy's first post-World War II supercarrier has arrived at its last port of call.
At 1,063 feet, the massive aircraft carrier USS Forrestal completed its final sail Tuesday when it arrived at a South Texas scrapyard after a 16-day journey from Philadelphia.
All Star Metals President Nikhil Shah says the vessel arrived at the Brownsville yard Tuesday afternoon.

The carrier left Philadelphia under tow Feb. 4. The 60-year-old ship was sold to All Star Metals for 1 cent.

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paintgun said:

I know this will break your hearts

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8–19 Aug 1981: Libyan strongman CAPT (later COL) Muammar al-Qadhafi, encouraged and supported an ongoing series of terrorist attacks against Westerners during the 1970s and 80s, which heightened friction between the West and the dictator across the region. Forrestal and Nimitz conducted an open ocean missile exercise in the Gulf of Sidra, and aircraft from both ships intercepted potentially threatening Libyan aircraft on a number of occasions. On the 19th newspapers across the nation proudly carried the headlines: “U.S. 2 – Libya 0,” as two F-14A crews, CDR Hank Kleeman and LT Dave Venlet and LTs Larry Muczynski and Jim Anderson (VF-41), shot down a pair of Libyan Sukhoi Su-22 Fitters. The Libyans threatened Nimitz during a tense encounter in the Gulf of Sidra, and the Tomcat crews splashed them with AIM-9L Sidewinder air-to-air missiles.

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17–19 Aug 1988: After visiting Naples (11–16 August), the crew’s first time ashore in 108 days, Forrestal took part in National Week ’88 in the central Mediterranean.

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Sikorsky CH-53K testing continues on schedule
By: JON HEMMERDINGERPALM BEACH8 hours ago Flight Global
The giant grey frame of a prototype Sikorsky CH-53K heavy lift helicopter rests on a concrete stand under South Florida’s hot winter sun, ready for testing.

But the prototype is not an aircraft – it is a ground test vehicle, mounted on a pedestal bolted to the aircraft’s transmission.

On a recent day, engineers prepared to fire up the GTV’s General Electric GE38-1B engines as part of a testing programme that Sikorsky says will lead to a first flight of the 39.9t gross weight helicopter by the end of the year.

The company tells Flightglobal that despite some minor problems, the programme remains on track for the aircraft to reach initial operational capability with the US Marine Corps by 2019.

“There are no significant technical issues,” Michael Torok, Sikorsky’s vice president of the programme, says during a tour of the facility. “There are no show stoppers.”

asset image
Sikorsky turns the rotor head on the GTV during "bare-head light-off" tests of the three main GE38-1B engines in December. Sikorsky.
That is not to say there have been no problems.

Although an acquisition report in late 2012 said the programme is “technically sound” and will likely reach all performance parameters, a 2013 report from the Department of Defense's inspector general noted that it has suffered “contractor manufacturing delays and failures during component testing”.

Torok concedes there have been setbacks that he describes as minor, but insists Sikorsky has faced no “technically challenging problems.” For instance, the company has needed to make electrical boxes and other electrical equipment such as resistors "more robust" to better withstand vibration. In addition, Sikorsky also needed to address unexpected compression of a bearing spacer located on the tail rotor shaft.

But he adds: “There is nothing on the list that we don’t have a fix [for] in the works.”


The company has already been testing the CH-53K’s seven main all-composite rotor blades and its four tail rotor blades at its headquarters in Stratford, Connecticut.

In December, the company first powered up the GTV’s auxiliary power unit in Florida, starting the so-called “bare-head light-off” tests of the engines and the rotor without blades. The GTV’s three main engines were started in January, and turned the rotor head.

Sikorsky says it hopes to begin testing the engines with the blades attached – the “shakedown light-off” tests – in the next three to four weeks.

Before first flight, about 200h of GTV testing must be completed, including 150h of “shakedown” tests during which the company will ensure that multiple systems are integrating and operating as designed.

The final 50h will be for a pre-flight acceptance test activity, which will include “multiple cycles of full aircraft operational demonstration” – a requirement for flight clearance, Sikorsky says.

GTV tests will then continue simultaneously with flight tests, which will be conducted on four flight test aircraft being produced in West Palm Beach.

Despite similarities to Sikorsky’s CH-53E Super Stallion, the CH-53K is an “all new aircraft” with a “clean-sheet design”, Torok says. Its three turbines can crank out 7,500shp each, compared with the 4,380shp GE T64 powerplants on the legacy platform. That power drives main rotor blades with upward sweeping anhedral tips designed to minimize drag-inducing vortexes.

The main rotors are 10.7m (35ft) long and nearly 0.9m wide, with 12% more surface area than the E-model. The 3m-long tail rotors have 15% more surface area, Sikorsky says.

Those changes, plus a newly designed gearbox, will allow the CH-53K to carry an external load of more than 12,200kg (26,900lb) over a mission radius of 110nm (204km): triple the capacity of the E-model, according to the company. In addition, the aircraft will have a digital fly-by-wire system and a larger cargo hold that will be able to carry standard US Air Force 463L pallets, Sikorsky says.

The programme launched in 2006 when Sikorsky won a $3.5 billion system development and demonstration contract that called for the production of the GTV, four flight test aircraft, one “static test article” and one “fatigue test article”.

The company announced in mid-2013 that the US Navy had added $435 million to the contract to build four system demonstration test articles (SDTAs), which the US Marine Corps will use to conduct operational evaluation tests. The DoD's programme of record now calls for Sikorsky to eventually deliver 200 aircraft to the service, including the four STDAs.

Production is scheduled to ramp up beginning in fiscal year 2018, with full-rate production to be reached by fiscal year 2023.Sikorsky says it has not determined if CH-53K production will ultimately be in Stratford or Florida.

Major contractors include Spirit AeroSystems, which is building the cockpit and cabin, GKN Aerospace, maker of the aft fuselage section, Exelis, which is building parts of the tail assembly, and ITT, producer of CH-53K’s dual sponsons, which will hold 4,730 litres (1,250USgal) of fuel each.

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USAF Space Chief Outs Classified Spy Sat Program
By Amy Butler [email protected]
Source: AWIN First

February 21, 2014
Credit: NASA
The U.S. Air Force is planning to launch two new and previously classified space situational awareness satellites into geosynchronous orbit this year, according to Gen. William Shelton, who leads Air Force Space Command.

The spacecraft were developed covertly by the Air Force and Orbital Sciences under the Geosynchronous Space Situational Awareness Program (GSAP), according to service officials.

The first two spacecraft will be boosted this year with two more to follow in 2016 to prevent a gap in surveillance on activities in the geosynchronous belt, Shelton said at the annual Air Force Association Air Warfare Symposium in Orlando. This is where commercial satellite communications are based, as well as critical national security assets such as the Space-Based Infrared System (Sbirs) early missile warning system and Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AEHF) constellation designed to provide jam-proof communications for the president even during a nuclear event.

“One cheap shot” against Sbirs or AEHF would be “devastating” to the Pentagon’s capabilities, Shelton said of a potential anti-satellite attack.

The two GSAP satellites will “drift” above and below the GEO belt, using electro-optical sensors to collect information on satellites and other objects in that region, Shelton said. They will be maneuverable, allowing them to be “tasked,” much like reconnaissance aircraft, to collect intelligence on specific targets, he said. The satellites will provide “accurate tracking and characterization” of satellites, according to an Air Force fact sheet released after Shelton’s speech here.

The very fact that the Air Force has developed and is deploying such a capability underscores concerns from government officials about the vulnerability of satellites that have become interwoven in government operations at all levels. The GPS constellation is already easily jammable because its signal is relatively weak, but officials worry about more widespread jamming as well as kinetic attacks.

Shelton declined to say how much the satellites cost or how long they took to design and fabricate. However, they are small enough that two of them will be launched together this year on a Delta IV from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.

Declassification was cleared by authorities in the U.S. government, in part to provide a deterrent effect to adversaries seeking to conduct hostile activities in space, according to a defense official. Also, the White House has said it will provide transparency as part of its space policy. Activities, especially of a maneuverable satellite in geosynchronous orbit, are detectable by allies and adversaries. Thus, releasing at least minimal information is a nod toward transparency and, potentially, aimed at quelling concerns that the capability will be viewed as offensive, the defense official said.

GSAP is, however, likely to be viewed by Russia and China as potentially hostile and could ignite a global debate about appropriate uses of space for military purposes.

The satellites could carry other payloads — such as radio-frequency sensors or jammers — that have not been disclosed.

GSAP is one element of the Air Force’s growing family of space situational awareness systems. Also in medium Earth orbit is the Space-Based Space Surveillance (SBSS) satellite built by a Boeing/Ball Aerospace team and launched in 2010. Carrying an agile, slewable electro-optical sensor, SBSS was designed to look up into GEO from a lower orbit; the distances, however, likely prevent high-fidelity imagery.

The emergence of the GSAP program likely explains why the Air Force was holding off on a SBSS follow-on, which was called for by Boeing and Ball Aerospace. It is likely the GSAP satellites provide more flexibility and higher-fidelity data than SBSS, though officials haven’t compared their capabilities publicly.

GSAP “will have a clear, unobstructed and distinct vantage point for viewing resident space objects orbiting Earth in a near-geosynchronous orbit without the disruption of weather or atmosphere that can limit ground-based systems,” the fact sheet says. “Data from the GEO SSA system will uniquely contribute to timely and accurate orbital predictions, enhancing our knowledge of the geosynchronous orbit environment, and further enabling space flight safety to include satellite collision avoidance.”

The service also is expected to announce a manufacturer soon to build a new Space Fence site at Kwajalein Atoll in the Pacific. And a C-band radar and electro-optical telescope designed for SSA and now located in the United States will be moved to Australia to provide better coverage of the Southern hemisphere, where launches from China travel to orbit.

The GSAP satellites will be operated by the 50th Space Wing at Shriever AFB, Colo.

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Pentagon F-16 Upgrade Hesitation Roils The Market
By Bill Sweetman
Source: Aviation Week & Space Technology

February 17, 2014
With the U.S. Air Force expected to drop plans to upgrade 300 late-model F-16s, the market for modernizing the Lockheed Martin fighter—already disrupted by BAE Systems' win in South Korea—could become even more contentious. Boeing might join the fray and, along with BAE, is eyeing $8 billion in opportunities in Singapore and Taiwan.

The planned upgrades—with cost estimates above $30 million per aircraft in some cases—include active, electronically scanned array (AESA) radar, new cockpit displays and a new mission computer. Options include improved electronic warfare systems, analog device replacement and communications gear.

It has also become clear that a factor in BAE's success was that the company convinced the Pentagon to challenge Lockheed Martin's long-defended monopoly of F-16 technology, giving the BAE team access to design data that had been created by Lockheed Martin under government-funded programs. That could be an important precedent for future upgrade programs involving modern, highly integrated weapon systems.

Taiwan's 146-aircraft upgrade program is planned to be based on the Air Force effort, the Lockheed Martin-led Combat Avionics Programmed Extension Suite (Capes) upgrade. The U.S. Defense and Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress in January of Singapore's interest in a 60-unit upgrade package, but the notification (unusually) did not specify a prime contractor.

Multiple reports, including a recent interview given by Gen. Mike Hostage, commander of the U.S. Air Force Air Combat Command, have suggested that Capes could be axed as a U.S. procurement program. Meanwhile, BAE's 134-aircraft upgrade for South Korea, including the Raytheon Air Combat Radar, went on contract in December. It is the only fully funded program, the first third-party upgrade for the F-16 and the first F-16 configuration with a radar from a supplier other than Northrop Grumman.

According to industry sources, BAE Systems beat Lockheed Martin on price. BAE and Boeing now suggest that Singapore might hold a competition for its upgrade, looking for a lower price, and that Taiwan—fearful of being left as the only Capes user—might follow Singapore's lead.

Lockheed Martin plays down these concerns, arguing that the Taiwanese upgrade is closely related to Capes but not dependent on the U.S. Air Force going ahead with its program. For Taiwan, “the price has already been agreed by the U.S. government,” says the F-16 business development director, Bill McHenry, who adds that the future of Capes will not affect Lockheed Martin's prices for future customers.

One reason for that must be Northrop Grumman's commitment to provide its Scalable Agile Beam Radar to Lockheed Martin at a fixed price regardless of quantity. Northrop also expects the future of Capes to have no impact on Taiwan.

Moreover, while South Korea is paying for development of the BAE Systems package, the Taiwanese order could pay for Lockheed Martin's. The Capes program has already paid part of the bill, since work on Capes is underway, having passed its preliminary design review in January. Lockheed Martin says laboratory test equipment should be delivered late this year and the program is on track for delivery of the first upgrade kits in mid-2017—if the program survives.

One potential competitor, however, characterizes Lockheed Martin's reassurances as “damage control,” adding that “the Air Force cares a lot about its reputation and has made a commitment to Taiwan.” An executive from another F-16 supplier is more blunt, saying that Lockheed Martin is “telling the Taiwanese to come off the ledge,” and suggests that the possibility of sharing through-life costs and support with one or two Asian neighbors could be tempting for a nation with immediate security concerns and a constrained budget. Moreover, a major selling point for Capes has been commonality of support and training with a large U.S. fleet.

Boeing may propose an F-16 package if Singapore opens a competition, a senior company executive said in Singapore last week. “Should they go that route, we'd be interested,” said Chris Raymond, Boeing Defense, Space & Security vice-president for business development and strategy.

Boeing has gained F-16 experience through the QF-16 target UAV system. Raymond says other third-party upgrades, including the C-130 Avionics Modernization Program and the re-winging of A-10s, have built credibility for the company. “Any time you go on to another platform like that, you have to ask whether you have the tools and the access to intellectual property, whether you can manage or rebuild the supply chain,” Raymond notes. “We can be credible.”

BAE is progressing as planned on the South Korean program, says Vice President for Global Fighter Programs John Bean. “I now have 1,800 man-years of F-16 experience on the program and we're only one-third of the way there” in hiring, he says. The new unit, based near Fort Worth at Alliance Airport, will hold a job fair in St. Louis in the coming weeks and plans to build to 300 people by year-end.

Two South Korean air force F-16s are expected to arrive within three months to start the modification process, with flight tests beginning late next year, and BAE Systems has acquired a Gulfstream business jet to act as a flying testbed. The South Korean program also includes Raytheon's ALR-69A radar warning receiver, and Exelis is offering its ALQ-214 internal jammer to replace the 1980s-technology ALQ-165.

One key to making the program work is “not over-promising,” Bean says. “We've hit a few speed bumps, but we are over them, out of the gates and gathering speed.”

Until now, Lockheed Martin has performed or controlled almost all upgrade work on the F-16 by virtue of asserting rights to proprietary technical information, the software in the central mission computer, and other data—the “walled garden” approach that is associated with Apple Inc. Bean says, however, that “I have every piece of data I need. I know where to get it and how to use it.”

According to an industry source, BAE Systems made the case to senior Pentagon leaders that the U.S. government had either unlimited or “government-purpose” rights to that information, that, a foreign military sale would count as a “government purpose,” and that a second source of F-16 upgrades would be beneficial. “They broached the garden wall,” the executive says.

South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan represent about one-third of the addressable market: BAE estimates that 1,000 F-16s worldwide—including 830 Block 50/52s outside the U.S.—are upgrade candidates.

The market is very important to the radar manufacturers, but they are taking different approaches,

Raytheon vice president for international strategy and business development Jim Hvizd says the company will work with any prime contractor, while BAE Systems will work with either radar supplier and can leave the choice to the customer if that is what the buyer wants. (South Korea made a separate source selection for the radar.) But Jeff Leavitt, vice president of combat avionics systems at Northrop Grumman, says his company has no plan to partner with BAE or Boeing. The U.S. Air Force delegated the choice of radar to Lockheed Martin, which selected Sabr.

Northrop Grumman says that the U.S. radar replacement could go ahead without Capes. Other participants say that would make little sense—upgraded computers and displays are needed to take advantage of AESA technology—and suggest that Northrop Grumman is fretting about its commitment to a fixed price based on capturing most of the market.

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Sources: Spec Ops funding likely to be 'reined in'
Feb. 21, 2014 - 01:56PM
By John T. Bennett
Staff writer ARMY TIMES
FILED UNDER
News
Congress & DOD
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is poised to scale back funding for the military’s most elite forces, which spearheaded the fight against al-Qaida and embodied the Pentagon’s rapid post-9/11 budget growth.

Budget analysts and sources had expected Defense Department and White House officials to propose a fiscal 2015 military spending request that continued growth in funding for special operations forces (SOF).

But after 13 years of constantly swelling budgets, Pentagon and White House budget officials are now expected to propose slowing SOF funding as the war in Afghanistan winds down and America’s commandos come off what President Obama has described as a “permanent war footing.”

“SOF will be flat” across the 2015 budget plan’s five years, said one defense source with ties to the Pentagon and White House.

Another source, citing conversations with senior special operations officials, told Defense News that SOF funding will be “reined in.”

The coming proposal to slow funding for the highly lethal forces follows a decade during which special ops ranks grew substantially to support the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as other missions against al-Qaida and similar groups.

Along with armed drones, special forces have become Obama’s preferred tool in the fight against Islamic extremist groups.

“SOF’s operational successes have been underwritten in part by significant growth in the force since 2001,” according to a recent Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment (CSBA) report. “Prior to 2001, approximately 2,800 SOF were deployed overseas. Since then, the number of SOF personnel deployed overseas on an annual basis has roughly quadrupled.”

US Special Operations Command’s (SOCOM) total force grew by around 25,000 after the September 2001 attacks, swelling from 38,000 in 2001 to 63,000 by 2012, according to CSBA.

In large part to pay for that 68 percent hike in commandos and equip them, SOCOM’s annual funding climbed from $2.3 billion in 2001 to around $10.5 billion in 2013, according to the Washington-based think tank.

Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute said setting SOF funding on a flat trajectory from 2015 through 2019 “sounds reasonable given the tremendous growth that area has seen in recent years.”

Special Operations Command chief Adm. William McRaven, during a Feb. 11 conference here, described in broad terms the shape of the coming SOF funding request.

“What we’re trying to do is, we’re trying to get rebalanced in terms of our O&M, our operations and maintenance money, and our procurement and [research, development, test and evaluation] money,” McRaven said.

“We got a little bit out of balance in terms of our long-term procurement, our long-term R&D,” McRaven said. “I’ve asked my staff, ‘Look, we’ve got to put this back into balance in terms of the share of the pie,’ if you will.”

The expected flattening of special operations funding shows, analysts say, that budget realities have finally caught up to the military’s most elite units.

“The bottom line is that we remain in a defense drawdown, with a defense budget that has actually gone down every year since FY 2010, and today we have a projected defense budget that is now well below the appetite the services counted on just two years ago,” former Clinton administration national defense budgeting chief Gordon Adams wrote in a recent blog post.

“If you look at the space between the healthy appetite of two years ago and the likely budgets today,” he wrote, “more than $1 trillion in total has disappeared from the 10-year wish list the service chiefs once had.”

The Pentagon had not responded to a request for comment. ■

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Odierno meets top Chinese generals
Feb. 21, 2014 - 08:02AM |

By Christopher Bodeen
The Associated Press
FILED UNDER
News
World News
Obama meeting with Dalai Lama rankles China
WASHINGTON President Barack Obama is hosting the Dalai Lama at the White House over the stern objection of China, which warned the meeting would “inflict grave damages” on the U.S. relationship with the Asian powerhouse.
Obama will greet the Tibetan spiritual leader and fellow Nobel laureate on Friday while the Dalai Lama is in the U.S. on a speaking tour. The White House did not announce the meeting until late Thursday, prompting a gruff complaint from Beijing in what has become something of a diplomatic ritual whenever Obama meets with the exiled Buddhist monk.
Urging Obama to cancel the meeting, China’s government accused the president of letting the Dalai Lama use the White House as a podium to promote anti-Chinese activities.
“The U.S. leader’s planned meeting with Dalai is a gross interference in China’s domestic politics,” said Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for China’s Foreign Ministry. “It is a severe violation of the principles of international relations. It will inflict grave damages upon the China-U.S. relationship.” — AP
BEIJING — China and the United States share common objectives and should boost cooperation between their militaries, the U.S. Army chief said Friday at the start of meetings with top Chinese generals aimed at building trust amid rising regional tensions.

U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond Odierno told his Chinese counterpart, Lt. Gen. Wang Ning, that both had “incredibly professional armies” that should work more closely together, in an effort to propel forward a relationship that has progressed by fits and starts over the past decade.

“I believe these discussions are important to continue our dialogue. We have many common objectives,” Odierno said in opening remarks at their meeting at the Defense Ministry in western Beijing.

Wang said China “sincerely hoped” for more substantial relations with the U.S. military through practical cooperation.

Both sides said they looked forward to discussing international and regional security matters, a nod to bitter disputes between China and two U.S. allies — Japan and the Philippines — over territorial claims in the East and South China Seas that have raised alarms over the possibility of armed conflict.

The director of intelligence for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, Capt. James Fanell, said last week that Chinese war games held last year were engineered to ready forces to snatch away the uninhabited islands from Japan, a move that almost certainly would trigger an American military response.

Odierno, the former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, was greeted with full military honors and had a full day of meetings scheduled in addition to a dialogue with scholars at the prestigious Peking University.

Along with the sharpening territorial disputes with its neighbors, China also sparked U.S. concerns late last year when it unexpectedly announced an air defense zone encompassing a large swath of the East China Sea, including islands controlled by Japan but claimed by Beijing.

Washington has refused to recognize the zone or follow China’s demands that its aircraft file flight plans with Beijing’s Defense Ministry and heed Chinese instructions. China has warned of unspecified retaliatory measures against aircraft that do not comply, but has so far taken no action.

Odierno’s visit began hours before the scheduled meeting later Friday in Washington between U.S. President Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama, which drew a strong protest from China. Beijing accuses the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader of being a separatist agitator and opposes any meetings between him and foreign leaders.

Despite tensions between the two sides, the militaries have pushed ahead with limited steps to reduce longstanding mistrust between them. They have held simulations aimed at cooperating in humanitarian relief operations, and China’s navy later this year is to take part in multinational naval exercises off Hawaii.

Odienro will travel north on Saturday to tour the headquarters of China’s Shenyang Military Region.

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Breaking: LWRC is up for Sale?
Posted 2 days ago in Shooting by Jon Stokes with 3 Comments

262 19*0*1 2 299
LWRC
This past December there were rumors on AR15.com about a possible sale of LWRC to Colt. Apparently, any questions about a possible LWRC sale that were posted on the LWRC board were deleted by the mods within minutes, and in general there’s a sense that something’s up.

Now we can add more fuel to the fire with some new revelations. Recent inquiries from AllOutoor to LWRC regarding possible advertising and T&E rifles were met with some pretty bizarre responses, which stated that the company is currently prohibited from entering into any “contracts, obligations, or expenditures.”

Having sold a company myself before, I know exactly what the above means: it means that LWRC is almost certainly in the final stages of talks with a buyer.

I circled back and asked for confirmation and received a “we can neither confirm nor deny” message. So yeah, I’m thinking that it’s on like Donkey Kong.

Other than the Colt rumor above, we don’t really have any leads on who the buyer might be. Strategic Armory Corps could be the buyer, or Remington, or pretty much anyone. Right now, there’s some consolidation and shuffling around in the industry, so the pool of possible buyers is quite large.

As for the timing, it looks like they’re expecting to be done sometime in late April, which means (given that M&A takes way longer than anyone thinks it will) that I’d expect official confirmation in the third or fourth quarter.

It makes plenty of sense that LWRC would be on the block right now, given that they just scored a huge contract with the Saudis to provide rifles in 6.8 SPC. And if the LWRC rep that I talked to at SHOT Show is correct, and the word is out that the U.S. military is taking a serious look at 6.8 SPC as a possible 5.56 replacement, then LWRC would be anybody’s number one pick to snap up and go after that business.

In other words, with LWRC’s new contracts and strong product line, there’s plenty of “lipstick on the pig,” as the bankers say, which makes it a perfect time to put the company on the block.

Of course, there could be other strange things afoot at LWRC besides a sale that explain the rumors and emails, but I seriously doubt it. This smells like a sale to me. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think so.

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bd popeye said:

Actually the USN paid one penny to have the ship towed and scrapped. One penny.

The mighty FID meets her fate.. the breakers hammer. Sad very sad indeed.

First
In
Defense

FID was what I refer to as a "cold war warrior"..having operated only twice in her 38 year career in harms way. That was off Vietnam in 1967. And that stint lasted only five days before the tragic fire struck on 29 July 1967.

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..and her aircraft struck down two Libyan Sukhoi Su-22 Fitters in 1981.....



The mighty FID still holds the record for consecutive days at sea for a conventionally powered carrier. That would be 108 days in a row..haze gray and underway.



...farewell Forrestal.....farewell.

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Miragedriver said:

Very sad to see a mighty ship meet its fate that way and become cooking utensils to be sold in stores. Almost as sad a seeing a ship sunk at port.

Was that vessel that beyond restoration that it couldn’t have been given to an American allie in exchange for overhaul and repairs?

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bd popeye said:

The USN would never sell a super carrier to anyone.

I believe the USN retired all it's oil fired CVs simply because of the cost of fuel to run them plus the heavy maintenance factor.

I believe all the Forrestal & Kitty Hawk class CVs could have been maintained to this day.. IF the USN really wanted to. Just my opinion.

.

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