USS Ainsworth (FF-1090)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
USS Ainsworth (DE / FF-1090)
USS Ainsworth (DE / FF-1090)
Overview
Type frigate
Keel laying June 11, 1971
Launch April 15, 1972
1. Period of service flag
period of service

March 31, 1973 -
May 27, 1994

Whereabouts sold
Technical specifications
displacement

4,100  ts

length

133.5 meters

width

14.25 meters

Draft

7.6 meters

crew

17 officers, 228 sailors

drive

1 propeller, 1 gear turbine, 2 boilers; 35,000  wave horsepower

speed

27+ knots

Range

4,500  nautical miles at 20 knots

The USS Ainsworth (DE / FF-1090) was a Knox-class frigate of the United States Navy . The ship, named after Vice Admiral Walden L. Ainsworth , served in the US Navy from 1973 to 1994 and in Turkey from 1994 to 2005.

history

The keel of the Ainsworth was laid on June 11, 1971 at Avondale Shipyards , New Orleans . After the christening by the widow of the eponym, the ship was launched on April 15, 1972, the commissioning of the US Navy took place after further equipment work on March 31, 1973. The first test voyage in the summer of 1973 took the ship to the Caribbean.

After a stay in the shipyard where minor damage was repaired, the first mission began in February 1974, which took the ship around South America and Cape Horn in the course of the year. The Ainsworth spent the first half of 1975 in the Caribbean again, followed by her first stay with the 6th US fleet in the Mediterranean in June . After visiting Spain and England, she returned to Norfolk in April 1976. In 1977 she took part in the "CARIBEX 1-77" exercise, followed by a renewed mission in European waters in March, which lasted until October 1977. In 1978 the ship took part in several large-scale exercises in the North Atlantic and was used as a training ship for helicopter crews. Another Caribbean mission followed in the spring of 1979, and the frigate was relocated to the Mediterranean in the second half of the year. In December she was part of the American Middle East Fleet in order to intervene during the hostage-taking of Tehran . In April 1980 she returned to her home port. In August 1980, the Ainsworth took part in a NATO exercise in the North Sea and visited the neighboring countries. After returning to Norfolk in January 1981, the next deployment in the Mediterranean followed in April. Together with several US aircraft carriers, she took part in multinational exercises there. In September the frigate returned to Norfolk and went to dock for a month for overhaul.

Ainsworth in dry dock

The next missions took the Ainsworth back to the Caribbean in autumn 1981 and spring 1982, and she spent the rest of 1982 off the US east coast. It was not until December that the 6th fleet was deployed again in the Mediterranean, which lasted until May 1983. From August 1983 to March 1984 the ship was in the dock in Norfolk, where extensive modernizations were carried out. The ship then tested its new equipment until the spring of 1985 and took part in extensive exercises in the Caribbean, followed by another six-month mission in the Mediterranean in August 1985. The years 1986 and 1987 the Ainsworth spent in American waters, in 1988 she was again fundamentally overhauled in the dock. From 1990 until its decommissioning, the ship served as a training ship for the Naval Reserve Force.

After more than 20 years of service, the frigate was decommissioned on May 27, 1994 and leased to Turkey. Since then it has been used as an Ege (F-256) . On January 11, 1995 she was deleted from the Naval Vessel Register, on September 29, 1999 the Turkish Navy finally acquired the ship. The Ege was decommissioned on March 21, 2005 and has been in reserve since then .

Web links

Commons : USS Ainsworth (FF-1090)  - Collection of pictures, videos, and audio files