The Philadelphia Navy Yard is the home for a bunch (nautical term...) of decommissioned warships. The largest of these are two latter-day aircraft carriers, the USS John F Kennedy and the USS Forrestal. Many of us remember the horrible fire onboard the Forrestal in July 1967, when a rocket accidentally launched from a fighter plane, striking the fuel tank of a neighboring plane and setting the flight deck on fire. Over 130 sailors died in the ensuing fire. You might know one of the pilots who was sitting in a plane, waiting to be waved to take off - his name is John McCain.
The Forrestal was built in 1954, and decommissioned in 1993. It sits, stripped of nearly everything usable, silent and empty. in a berth along the Delaware River, just across from the town of National Park, New Jersey. If you've ever flown in to Philadelphia Airport, chances are you flew just a few hundred feet above these carriers, as the approach pattern for nearly every flight comes in right over the Navy Yard.
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, 50D, [17-40mm f/4
