HMS Illustrious sets sail to scrapyard

Panos

Panos

Panos

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Is always a sad day for a mighty machine to end up in a scrapyard, chopped to pieces and melted down.

Seriously, £2.1m the Government has taken from the Tuskish yard to scrap it, is peanuts against the billions squandered for other meaningless matters. Let alone the billions spent to make it.

I believe I am not the only one, who feels those machines have a soul, and deserve better fate. :(

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/07/hms-illustrious-sets-sail-turkish-scrapyard/
 
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It would have been great to see it turned into another Intrepid style museum on a coastal port somewhere so kids could have seen it and also seen examples of our air wings over the years. For me the biggest crime when it comes to naval decommissioning is that we no longer possess one example of a Battleship or Battlecruiser. Makes Housey sad :(
 
I also agree with what Housey says, it'd make a great museum or they could use it to punt all the immigrants back to Africa.

Or turn it in to student accommodation or something. Scrapping it is a bit wasteful, especially as we're knee deep in steel production issues at the moment.
 
Panos said:
I believe I am not the only one, who feels those machines have a soul, and deserve better fate. :(
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It's just sheets of metal formed in the shape of a boat and only 30 odd years old - it's not like it's the Victory at 200+ years old.

I'm not sure what all the fuss is about.
 
We should paint on the side how many foreign combatants it facilitated the killing of and the £££ of infrastructure it trashed... then sail it round the UK as a warning.... or park it in the channel
 
ubersonic said:
From who? It's not like there are a lot of buyers out there for X tons of floating scrap.
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We have shipyards capable of breaking it down don't we?

I must admit I have no idea how much cost is involved in breaking it down/melting and selling on but surely the amount of metal there is worth more than the above costs?

Obviously I'd prefer to see it as a museum but if it must be broken down surely the raw materials are worth much more than a couple million.
 
robfosters said:
Even sadder if any servicemen have died on it. Was it ever in battle?
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Falklands conflict . Her and HMS Hermes were the aircraft carriers .

Hermes had a better fate - she was sold to the `Indian Navy in 1986 . I can remember all the red dockyard bikes going missing (pussers reds) during the ships handover . Literally everyone was stolen and ended up on board .

http://www.portsmouth.co.uk/news/de...er-being-sold-for-less-than-a-penny-1-7239783

Anyhow RIP HMS Illustrious , you served as well . Not bad for a skimmer .
 
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robfosters said:
Even sadder if any servicemen have died on it. Was it ever in battle?
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A combat deployment for the ship took place in 2001 but the ship was never involved in any conflict. In 2007 seven of her crew had to be airlifted to hospital in Middlesbrough on 13 March suffering from fume inhalation and throat and eye irritation after an accident with chemicals in cleaning a junior ratings' toilet area.
There were no deaths.
It's not difficult to access the relevant Wiki page.
 
Bald-Eagle22 said:
Falklands conflict . Her and HMS Hermes were the aircraft carriers .
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''As the ship neared the end of its fitting out period, the Falklands War broke out. As a consequence, work on Illustrious was greatly speeded up. The war was won before Illustrious could be finished, but she did perform a useful service in the aftermath.''
 
Don't understand why it doesnt come down to Portsmouth and go into the Naval Museum yard, or expand the Submarine Museum to include this. I'd love to go on an aircraft carrier. It could then make money :D
 
ubersonic said:
From who? It's not like there are a lot of buyers out there for X tons of floating scrap.
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You'd be surprised. When I was a commodity broker some of the contracts I saw floating around would've blown your mind. There was one for 35 warships. I think they were from Canada iirc. Tens of thousands of tons of metal just sitting there waiting for a buyer.
 
Thought they'd already scrapped it for some reason - though I only found out recently Invincible had been :S

Not a fan of them being decommissioned without overlap but without harriers not sure what we'd have flown from them anyhow.
 
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