Taking One for the Team

America (CVA66) on sea trials in Chesapeake Bay, 1964.

The Navy plans to send one of its own – the retired aircraft carrier USS America – to the bottom of the ocean in a series of explosion tests which are designed to provide invaluable data for the construction and outfitting of the next generation of aircraft carriers, the Associated Press reported. The Navy will spend $22 million on tests that will span several weeks, starting with a tow approximately 300 miles off of the east coast, and ending with its sinking in approximately 6,000 feet of water. The tests that will be closed to the press and the public’s eyes. USS America was commissioned in 1965, decommissioned in 1996, and has spent the last nine years moored with other inactive warships at a Navy yard in Philadelphia.