I'm on a boat. A really big one with aircraft...

Spent a week out doing some official business with a few coworkers on the USS Harry S. Truman, a nuclear aircraft carrier. Not gonna say much about what we were doing, but thought you all might enjoy some of my photos from the trip.

Catching a ride at Norfolk NAS...

Not exactly first class, but at least I had the only window seat

By the way, you know those sweet Sparco race seats you have? Well these aren't them. But these take a lot more G-forces....

Oh look what's out the window...

On deck

Most of the time was spent loading tons of bombs and missiles from a ship next door. 8 hours a day via helicopters and tension wires (like a big zip line)

The hangar deck is especially large when no aircraft are in it

Getting some good night views up on the 0-10 level

Up on the bridge at 0400 dark o'clock

But honestly we spent plenty of time playing cards in the XO's conference room lol

Lots of helos

Some big boys dropped by as well. It's pretty rare to see a 53 on a carrier

Involves a lot of guys on deck doing stuff as well

Pulling back into port with my team. That's the newest carrer the Ford in the background

Super cool! But both your company and the US govt are ok with you taking and publishing those pics? Color me surprised.

I'm not even on the defense side of my company and can't even take boring personal pics of nothing important while on company property, let alone share them, without risking my job. 

I spy a Top Gun (Fighter Weapons School) patch on the guy sitting next to you in the second shot.

I'm sure all that was briefed before coming on board, but most looks like things you could see in a recruiting brochure.

I am a little disappointed. No riding dolphins, no flippy floppies. 

I have built drive shafts and engine input couplings for both of the Helo's you show there. It is hard to describe the scale of a CH-53 until you see it up close. The tail rotor drive shafts in that ac are berkeleying huge! Thanks for the share.

bobzilla said:

I am a little disappointed. No riding dolphins, no flippy floppies. 

No Santana Champ? What is this?

Very cool pictures.

I have been on the flight deck of the Bush (CVN-77) and it seems enormous... until you contemplate landing a Super Hornet there.

Fly Navy

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Fantastic! 
Although 90% of my time at NNSY was Subs, I did a bit of work on carriers while there. (Including a bit on the Enterprise) Never got to go out on anything. And I was odd enough to WANT to!
The easiest way I've found to explain to "civies" just how MASSIVE our carriers are, is to point out that the navy uses jeeps to drive around inside the hanger deck. Although I imagine they us some EV now. 

Those are incredibly cool shots. Thanks for sharing!!

cool stuff!

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

More importantly was he on a boat like a boss?

Thanks for sharing. 

Apropos of nothing, it looks like drop from cradle to water in one of the enclosed orange life boats on the service ship is at least 30 feet. 

Great shots!  I can't believe that the helmets and flight deck uniforms are the same type we wore in 1971.   When I was in the Top Gun School was in the training squadron at Mirimar.  Enlisted men went through their program before being assigned to fleet squadrons.

In reply to bobzilla :

And did he have flippy-floppies?

The scale of those beasts is amazing.  

Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) said:

Thanks for sharing. 

Apropos of nothing, it looks like drop from cradle to water in one of the enclosed orange life boats on the service ship is at least 30 feet. 

Not if things have gone poorly.  The water is likely much closer at that point.

Way back at the dawn of the supercarrier era the big one was the Forrestal.  My dad was aboard her for most of 65-66 and assigned to fixing Phantoms.  Apparently they were just figuring out some crucial details about landing big heavy planes on a carrier, such as the fact that arresting cables need to have a service life.  Apparently he witnessed one snap (there is a terrifying amount of energy released when this happens).  After that they threw them away after 100 arrests.

In reply to Brett_Murphy (Agent of Chaos) :

Those appear to be so called "gravity davits".  They first swing the lifeboats outboard of the ship and then cable falls at each end of the lifeboat lower it down to the water.  It's probably closer to 60 feet from the lifeboat deck to the water, I'm guessing the lifeboats themselves are about 35 feet long. 

Can confirm it's a long way down. I got to help prove to the USCG that the lifeboats on the training ship worked properly roughly a million years ago now before we headed out on cruise across the Atlantic to the Med.  Fortunately it was flat calm at the time and the ship was only moving at about 6 knots.  Coming back alongside, hooking up and then hoisting back up into place was way more scary as I remember.

To the OP:  So. Freaking. Cool.   Riding the COD out to the boat is a bucket list item for sure.  

Driven5 said:

Super cool! But both your company and the US govt are ok with you taking and publishing those pics? Color me surprised.

I'm not even on the defense side of my company and can't even take boring personal pics of nothing important while on company property, let alone share them, without risking my job. 

You're correct in that there certainly ARE many parts of the ship where photos cannot be taken and phones are left outside the space. But topside and open spaces, nothing sensitive being shown. Go watch the documentary "Supercarrier" and you'll see 100x more areas of the ship than I'm showing! Btw, I am a govvie, but plenty of folks were taking pics of the flight ops, etc (including many sailors). Noncombat workups/training stuff isn't sensitive at all. 

Hey, we even took a pic with the CO 

aircooled said:

I spy a Top Gun (Fighter Weapons School) patch on the guy sitting next to you in the second shot.

Good eye. That's my department head (though technically he's junior to me lol). He was formerly an F-14 RIO and Top Gun instructor (and carrier air boss)

bobzilla said:

I am a little disappointed. No riding dolphins, no flippy floppies. 

Apparently a group of dolphins were off the bow for a while at one point, but I didn't see them. Apparently there was a good view of them from the Chiefs' smoke pit lol. 

03Panther said:

In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :

Fantastic! 
Although 90% of my time at NNSY was Subs, I did a bit of work on carriers while there. (Including a bit on the Enterprise) Never got to go out on anything. And I was odd enough to WANT to!
The easiest way I've found to explain to "civies" just how MASSIVE our carriers are, is to point out that the navy uses jeeps to drive around inside the hanger deck. Although I imagine they us some EV now. 

I've worked on "ship stuff" for the Navy for 24 years and this is my first time at sea other than tiger cruises when I was a kid (Dad was a Navy officer as well), so I hear you. And yeah, took 2-3 days to be able to get from my stateroom to the wardroom without ending up in some random passageway haha.

IDK about driving around the hangar bay. Lots of guys jogging laps in there, but the only vehicles are forklifts and the tugs (which move planes around) for the most part. It's about 800 feet long, so a bit more than 2 football fields give or take. 

bobzilla said:

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

More importantly was he on a boat like a boss?

I mean, we hung out in the XO's conference room (where there's wifi) like a boss haha....