Instead of Scrapping Aircraft Carriers

Why not turn them into bridges?

It does sound kind of crazy, at first, but assuming its feasible, and cheaper than building a conventional bridge, it does open up some interesting possibilities. For example, people have talked about building a bridge between Alaska and Russia, imagine one spanning the Bering Sea made from old Russian and American carriers, it'd be a fitting symbol for the end of the Cold War, I think. (Though we'd probably want to wait until Putin's out of office before we proposed it.) And since carriers are really big, have giant elevators on them, massive fuel tanks, living quarters, and the like, they'd be perfect for spanning long distances like that. Each one of them would be like DS9, with a mixture of different nationalities, jobs, etc. We could do the same thing between the US and Cuba, as well. Of course, neither we nor the Russians, probably have enough carriers waiting to be scrapped to be able to either of those things, but its a damned interesting idea, I think.

Bridges generally allow for water trafic to go under them.....

The carriers aren't connected bow to stern, there's conventional bridge segments between them, so water traffic could easily pass under those parts.

Bridges don't usually require long and expensive periods in a dry-dock to keep their bottoms from rusting and, you know, sinking. Ships also tend to sway at anchor and that would be amplified by winds and storms. Another, generally, bad idea for bridges.



You could partially flood them down and rest them on a sand base like many museum ships, but I imagine maintenance to stall rust would be much more expensive than traditional bridge maintenance.

Either way, I like the idea of a bridge between Bremerton and Port Orchard in any case.

When I was stationed in Bremerton, I lived in Port Orchard and the drive around was too long.

The first successful American take off from an aircraft carrier didn't happen until after WW1 and it happened in San Diego. The Navy took the guns off of a decommissioned battleship, built a wooden top on it and then had exactly one plane take off one time before cutting the program and having it scuttled off of Point Loma. It is still a popular wreck for scuba divers.

Lake washington has floating bridges last I checked. Those have concrete floats and spans to let water traffic through.

Maintaining 50 y/o iron hulls seems like a waste. It's also not exactly handsome what with the rust and such. While I'm as big a geek as the next, no bridge would be better.

Here's a nice article on floating bridges.

I was enchanted by this as a kid. That and the Indian art work in the tunnels on the Seattle end. Mercer Island is a bit snobbish.

Is this competition for that thing about "submarines on conveyor belts"?

Incorrect. Eugene Ely flew off the USS Birmingham's makeshift deck, in 1911.

Well if you want to get technical, the United States union forces launched a manned balloon off of a towed barge during the Civil War making that the first aircraft carrier.

Wouldn't it make more sense to use them as floating airports?

How? Very few commercial aircraft can take off on a runway of barely 800 feet or less.

Switch to COD (carrier onboard delivery) type aircraft and use them as commuter planes, which is what they do anyway when they shuttle people to the Navy's floating airports.

I doubt most commuters would take well to the force of launch and landing.

Nor can military jets, which is why carriers are equipped with catapults.

Otter toll booths or GTFO.

Why don't we put some wheels on them and call them a ford F750 and sell them to stupid fednecks with way too much money? They do not even really need to run because they will probably just sit next to the other heaps in their yard.

Actually U-2s and C-130s have taken off and landed from carrier decks IIRC. Someone who has naval experience can correct me if I'm wrong.

Also I'm pretty sure an AV-8B Harrier doesn't require an 800 foot runway.

And of course I would have to add that if we use military craft for bridges that the public can use, then the least the public can do is to pay for some better replacements.

If we have to do away with medical care for over 70s and food stamps for some worthless children as well, then so be it.

This is actually true.

http://www.military.com/video/milit...0-carrier-landing-without-hook/2812569251001/

That Herky bird had wind over the bow. The submarine bridge-carriers wouldn't.

Wow, no hook!

Aren't all flight operations with fixed wings routinely conducted with about 20 knots of wind over the bow?

Or more. The more the better.

As Chaos Descending said, the more the better. I'm sure you've seen video of flight operations before. Ever wonder why you never see nearby ships in those videos? The reason CVN's are so vulnerable during flight operations is because they've run off from their escorts. They'll turn into the wind and ring up every ounce of power. The 35+ knot carriers will simply outrun their 25 knot frigate escort and sometimes their 30+ knot cruiser escort.

I have a very good idea of how fast a Nimitz class CVN can really go. I saw a documentary in HD on the Discovery Channel that accidentally showed the data repeater next to the Captain's chair on the bridge. I realized what it was and paused it. It showed time, date, position, course, speed, rpms, wind speed and direction, etc. Lets just say that her cruisers would struggle to keep up with her and a frigate has no hope of keeping up.

Also, remember that the Enterprise Battle Group was transiting the Indian Ocean on her way home on September 11th, 2001. Without orders, she turned around and proceeded at flank speed to the Persian Gulf, outrunning her entire escorting force.

I had thought that carriers tried to hit a relative "sweet spot" of 20-25 knots of wind over the bow for flight operations and that going full bore and producing over 30 knots over the bow was in fact not preferred as it made things like plane handling, arming, and refueling difficult and more dangerous than usual for flight deck personnel (try doing any job outside with a 35 mph wind howling right at you).

Yeah I remember the Enterprise on Sept. 11th. It was something that was noted on the news programs shortly after the towers fell IIRC "in the Indian Ocean the carrier Enterprise has changed course and is racing north"

I actually didn't realize that carriers still turned in to the wind in the catapult era. There's always more to learn!

IIRC, there has been only one carrier borne combat jet aircraft built to be capable of being catapulted into the air when the carrier was stationary and there was no wind over the deck and that was the A-5 Vigilante. Originally built to be the Navy's nuclear bomber (it carried a 4 megaton bomb) but in operations used exclusively as a recon platform.

The reason that US Navy pilot training bases are located near oceans is because of the near-constant wind that blows there. It simulates flight operations at sea.

I did a story at one in South Texas a few years ago that was having problems with nearby wind farms which had been erected there precisely because the wind blows all the time.

Didn't you watch JAG?