The least-developed Lexington hull becomes a carrier

The six Lexington hulls' later scrap values offer evidence for their relative construction progress. Ranger brought only a little over $10,000, far less than Constellation, Constitution, or United States, suggesting that it was the least advanced ship. Converting that hull would leave five battlecruisers and give Newport News the first large American carrier project. Because little more than keel material may have existed, the work would be a conversion in treaty language but almost a clean-sheet carrier on the stocks. That freedom could produce a more deliberate aviation ship than a conversion constrained by a nearly completed battlecruiser structure.