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Location: SoCal | On the day after Xmas, I went down to San Diego with male members of the family and toured the USS Midway, a retired aircraft carrier.
On the flight deck, were aircraft of all kinds that flew from the Midway. Nestled among all the aircrafts was a Kaman helicopter. It was fun to explain to my father, son, brother, and nephews that this was the same company that built my guitars.
Great tour. We spent 5 hours onboard and had a great time. |
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Posts: 11039
Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | Takes about 5 hours to walk from end to end... |
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March 2002
Posts: 14842
Location: NJ | In NY, we've got the carrier Intrepid.
Same thing, flight deck is COVERED with aircraft (including one of the Concordes).
Last month, they yanked it out to bring it over to Bayonne, NJ for a 2-year long refurb.
First attempt (one month previous) failed miserably. They waited until high-tide at a full moon to attempt to tow it (props first) out of about 20ft. of mud. They got it to move 15 feet.
Prior to the next full moon, they got the Army Corp of Eng's in to pump out some of the mud before trying again.
duh . . . . |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | afterall... it is the INTREPID |
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Posts: 9301
Location: south east Michigan | Sounds like a great way to spend an afternoon.
I have a block of wood about 2"x2"x4" that's from the deck of the Enterprise. |
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Posts: 11039
Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | |
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Posts: 15664
Location: SoCal | Brad, that would have been from the WWII Enterprise, the "Big E".... The current Enterprise was across the harbor from us along with the Nimitz... |
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Location: Boise, Idaho | We'll be having dinner on the Midway deck next summer. Hope the Kaman helicopter is still there. |
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December 2003
Posts: 13987
Location: Upper Left USA | Although having to clean tanks and bilges at the start of my career can take some of the luster away from anything painted Navy Gray, the Carriers are still awesome.
I had oversight on a Contract to maintain our Shaft Handling Units and got to take the Contracting Officer out of her cubicle/office and show her just what this equipment was and what the Workers dealt with daily. USS Carl Vinson was in Drydock at the time so we were able to walk underneath and sight down the keel.
A Carrier is one of the extreme Big Boy Toys! |
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Posts: 15664
Location: SoCal | Shaft Handling Units? Contracting Officer? Sounds like Ho's and Pimp's...... |
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Posts: 14842
Location: NJ | BRAD!!!
Woody&Moody are using DoubleEntendre and SexualInnuendo again!!! . . . . |
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February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | A blonde walks into a bar and asks the barman for an innuendo, so he gave her one.
That may be a Brit thing and lost on you colonials. |
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Location: NJ | GotIt :D |
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Location: The Great Pacific Northwest | I've had my fill of BGT's when I was in the Navy, but now they are fun to visit again. I will probably see the midway next month too. |
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November 2003
Posts: 11039
Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | Originally posted by Paul Templeman:
A blonde walks into a bar and asks the barman for an innuendo, so he gave her one. she musta been French. |
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Posts: 13987
Location: Upper Left USA | While I have to admit to the Ho's and Pimps, since we all have our price, I stop at the innuendo. We walked around but never made entry.
There Brad, is that better? |
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Location: Scotland | Innuendo? isn't that Italian for Enema? |
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Location: Orange County, California | Back on subject.... Sorta.
I toured the Midway with our Dads & Daughters group earlier this year. It is great that we have access to these floating museums. The coolest thing (to me anyway) was the Ships Inertial Navigation System (SINS) room. They have two (for redundancy I guess) Univac all-tube computers in there that were still functioning when "she" (the Midway) was decommissioned in 1989. One of the cool aspects of vacuum tubes, is that they (unlike IC's, the microprocessors in all of our computers, automobile ECM's, Ipods, cellphones etc) are not affected by strong magnetic fields or EMP from a nuclear detonation, making them suitable for use as a critical guidance component for a warship.
I predict that in post-holocaust future, all world conflicts would be solved be seeing who has the loudest tube amps, and the OFC would be allot more about playing Ovations than wasting our time on the internet ;) :p ;) :p |
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Location: south east Michigan | Brad, that would have been from the WWII Enterprise, the "Big E". Yes, of course. I was not specific enough. |
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Posts: 122
Location: Tucson, AZ | ..."FLY NAVY" just doesn't have the 'ring' to it that "FLY UNITED" (of United Airlines) does! ha,ha
USN('63-'71)--aircrewman aboard EC-121 "Warning Star" airborne early warning planes (pre-AWACs!) |
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Location: San Bernardino, California | FYI the highest wattage tube amp was 250,000 watts. It was used to test missles for vibration problems. |
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Location: ranson,wva | i may be thinking of a different port but i rember as a grade school kid going to the harbor and getting on a docked battleship...i cant rember if it was the port of baltimore at the inner harbor or the norfolk shipyards...but i do rember it was super cool...jason |
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Slightly OT: USS Midway