Falklands has nothing to do with it.  What friendly nation could afford to refurb, man and operate one of these?

Nobody wants the old steam turbine ships for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is almost everything on them is obsolete.

My Constellation story. Was on deployment to Misawa with VP-40 in '79. We'd been to the PI to do a load and were headed back to Misawa. We lost our IFF about an hour out of Cubi and overflew the Connie on the way home. Since they couldn't identify us they launched their ready one on us. So here we are droning along at 25,000 feet when two F-14s go ripping by. One parks off the port wing with the wingman off our tail. The Tomcat comes up on guard and we both switch over to a UHF freq and then the fun began.





Our plane commander and the lead Tomcat pilot where class mates in pilot training so a bunch of natural verbal abuse starts up. After a couple of verbal exchanges which include the Tomcat along side doing a slow roll 360. We all hear, "Let's see you do something with that bus." My PPC says, "Watch this." We all grab on to something thinking he's going to do something stupid with our P-3. Instead he comes walking to the back of the bus, goes in the head, comes out, gets in the reefer and gets a sandwich out of his lunch and a cup of coffee. I followed him back up to the flight station and he says to the Tomcat driver, "How'd you like that."





Now mind you, they can see each other clearly since its midday with no clouds. The Tomcat driver says, "You don't do anything."





My PPC says, "Oh yeah, I got up and went to the head, got a sandwich (as he holds up his sandwich to the side window) and a cup of coffee (again holding up his cup of coffee). Let's see you do that." There was no more comm from the F-14s. They both wen about 200 yards out in front of us, went to full burner and climbed out of sight. Which was quite impressive to say the least. They pretty much disappear out of sight at which point my PPC says, "He always was an asshole."





i still wonder what that guy was thinking as he sat there in that cramped cockpit with a piddle bag on his leg as my pilot got up walked around and grabbed some chow and coffee. Not to mention we probably got as much flight time on that one flight as they did in a whole month.








       
 
 

bluuurrpp, anybody can be an OOD on a bird farm, everybody else is trying to stay the hell out of your way, especially when you start turning and then remember to let everybody else know.

So Master Chief who gets to be First LT and herd the non-rates in needling, scraping, priming and painting?  (I did that once and have no desire to ever do it again)

The Iowa isn't owned by a gov't organization.  They learned fron the Queen Mary that taking care of a big ship is a horrendous money pit.

This, Also used to trap Sea Bats, and stationing the mail buoy watch when conducting flight ops.  The sea bat trap was a happy coincidence discovered on the first West Pac.

Those would  make awesome prison ships.

To be honest her material condition towards the end was sub par. It was her crew that made her special. For some reason, that ship had "IT".

I'm comparing her to the NIMITZ and VINSON as my other two carriers. I was on the BOXER too but I won't compare apples and pears.

I wasn't sure, just knew that was fuckin' old. My knowledge of VAST stopped at "don't go near VAST".

/RADCOM puke

I dont think they lied, they just wernt sure. The Navy didnt seem to keep good notes back then. What they do think however is that the Connie in Balt was built with some of the lumber from the original Connie.

They had a good fire on the Constellation back in 1960, in the Brooklyn Navy yard. From what I read about it as kid, it was a tough job.

I spent 29 days going back and forth between the Connie and the K Hawk when I was doing research for a Novel that was approved by NAVINFOWEST in Hollywood.  Admiral Bradshaw made me spend a day with each division on the ship.  I will never forget my day with the Snipes and standing over the turning shaft.  Oh, I got three landings Two COD and one F/A 18B driven by 'Jeep' Stivers who has remained a friend.  I have a wall full of photo's of me on the Connie and cherish this experience.  Oh, 9/11 changed the perimeters for the novel and I will be working on the update with CDR Gary S who was the Hollywood person for the Navy for quite a while.

Sell them to the Indians.  They'd have a functional floating computer call center running out of any of them within two months.

Not keeping good notes was a good way to get money out of Congress back in the 1800's. Especially after the drive to save the Constitution.

The Baltimore folks spent years denying that there was any chance of this not being the original Frigate, despite it being different in nearly all dimensions.

they should let retired naval personnel that served on it continue to run it as a naval reserve force.

This, and there would be many volunteers.

They only have a 30 year design life.  If you do a Service Life Extension Program on one, you can get another 25 - 30 15 - 20 years out of it - at the cost of 40% of a new carrier.

It really doesn't make sense to try to get more out the old oil-burners.

Well she was a money maker and still is. The last time I was in the Inner Harbor I was expecting some technicals to show up and start disgorging Taliban fighters and Somalians. The original Connie was a Frigate, the one in Balt is a Sloop of War.

This story has been around a long time:  Link

I like your thinking but don't know if it is possible
I have visited the battleship Massachuttes in Fall River Ma . Those good folks work their ass off but I just don't see how they are doing more than painting over the rust and trying to keep the pumps going . They are a year round museum but except for a few idiots like me hardly anyone in their right mind can stand the cold from Oct to March . Yeah they have heat and air conditioning but it makes it only barely tolerable if it is truly hot or cold . They do lots of their work with volunteers , get berthing for free or with sweetheart rates but it still has to cost a staggering amount to keep the lights on and trying to keep up with the rust .
Fall River also has a WWII sub , a destroyer , some kind of commie missile frigate and a wonderful section with several PT boats .

How many of these outfits have the financial ability to do bottom work by putting one of these monsters in dry dock ? I suspect very few . In many cases these museum ships are in a port location that doesn't have a dry dock facility anywhere close .

The bigger the ship the bigger the problems trying to keep it floating and with bigger cost . I expect we will see some of these museum groups go under and the ships they own will become huge liabilities . Good luck to them

lol...not even the USA in all our proper economic glory (which are loooong past) can afford to have that many carrier groups running around.

My dad built her and survived the fire.

The USS Independence was my first ship.  I served on her during her first Med cruise around 1960 and Connie was my Last ship that I retired from in 1980.

Yup.  I first heard it about an air force fighter pilot / Bomber pilot back in the 1950s.

Standard Naval War story since the advent of jet propulsion.