( CNN ) The aircraft carrier USS Ranger , which saw action in the Vietnam War and Operation Desert Storm and had appearances in the movies `` Top Gun '' and `` Star Trek IV , '' is on its final journey , a five-month cruise at the end of a tow cable from Bremerton , Washington , to a scrapyard in Texas . The 56,300-ton warship , which was launched in 1956 , was decommissioned in 1993 but kept in storage for possible reactivation until March 2004 when it was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register and made available for donation to a group that could preserve it and turn it into a museum . But attempts by groups in Long Beach , California , and Fairview , Oregon , to do so came up short of meeting U.S. government requirements for donation . The Long Beach group called itself Top Gun Super Carrier in reference to the Ranger 's role in the 1986 Tom Cruise movie . The carrier was used for interior shots in the film , which also featured appearances by the carriers USS Carl Vinson and USS Enterprise , according to Internet Movie Database . In December , the Navy paid International Shipbreaking of Brownsville , Texas , a penny to take the carrier off its hands . The shipbreaker makes its profit by selling the parts of the ship for scrap . The Ranger , which left Bremerton on Thursday , follows two of its predecessors in the Forrestal class of carriers -- the Forrestal and the Saratoga -- to scrapyards in Brownsville . Another carrier , the USS Constellation , part of the Kitty Hawk class , was towed to Brownsville 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 said .
Aircraft carrier USS Ranger 's final journey likely will take four to five months , Navy says . Comment: