“It’ll take 10 minutes,” the officer replies.
“Bull—- 10 minutes! This thing will be over in two minutes! Get on it!” Stinger says.
Fast-forward to 2015, and the fate of the carrier in “Top Gun” is in similar peril.
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Another carrier, the USS Constellation, part of the Kitty Hawk class, was towed to Brownsville late last year. Like the Ranger, the Constellation was stored in Washington and because of its size had to be towed all the way around the southern tip of South America, as it would not fit through the Panama Canal. The Ranger’s final journey is expected to take four to five months, the Navy says.
The Ranger spent more than 35 years on active service, including missions off Vietnam and in support of Operation Desert Storm.
