Visit to the USS Nimitz (CVN-68) |
Gallery Article by Mike Yeo
on
Oct 15 2003
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On Saturday the 13th
of September 2003,
I was privileged enough to be a guest of the US Navy, together with fellow
Singaporean ARC'ers Sebastian L, Jer Wei and YC, on the aircraft carrier
USS Nimitz (CVN-68). She had stopped by in Singapore for liberty on her way home
to San Diego following a WestPac cruise which included a tour of duty in the
Arabian Gulf. Following a exchange of emails and phone calls to some local
contacts, we were able to be invited up for a tour of the carrier while she was
berthed at Changi Naval Base, which is the only berth in South East Asia large
enough to accommodate aircraft carriers, according to the US Navy.
During the visit, our
group was
taken to the hangar deck, flight deck and bridge and this photo spread shows
some of what we saw that day. Unfortunately, after the brilliant sunshine that
came with the Republic of Singapore Air Force Open House the previous weekend,
Mother Nature decided to even things up the following weekend with gloomy grey
weather over all of Singapore on the weekend of the visit. This resulted in some
pretty grey photos of the aircraft on deck, and I'll not be winning any photo
competitions with my photos taken on the tour. But I suppose it wasn't a total
loss, there weren't any of the heavy tropical thunderstorms that Singapore was
treated to on the Sunday after our visit!
For this cruise, CVW-11 was embarked on the Nimitz, with the
following squadrons.
VFA-14 Tophatters - Boeing F/A-18E Super Hornet
VFA-41 Black Aces - Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet
VFA-94 Mighty Shrikes - Boeing F/A-18C Hornet
VFA-97 Warhawks - Boeing F/A-18A Hornet
VAQ-135 Black Ravens - Grumman EA-6B Prowler
VAW-117 Wallbangers - Grumman E-2C Hawkeye
VS-29 Dragonfires - Lockheed S-3B Viking
HS-6 Indians - Sikorsky SH-60F/HH-60H Seahawk
VRC-30 Providers - Grumman C-2A Greyhound
The planes were looking pretty roughed-up, as you would expect from USN
planes after a few months at sea. Definitely a change from my previous visits to
USN carriers, where the planes looked fresh as I saw them at the start of their
cruises. Almost all the planes on this visit had patches of grey
"spot-primed" in several places, and all looked very weathered. A
couple of planes had interesting schemes in addition to the usual colourful CAG
schemes, with a F/A-18A of VFA-97 being finished in an Adversary-style Desert
camouflage, with Tan/Green/Brown on its uppersurfaces over TPS grey
undersurfaces. Another eye catching scheme was a HH-60H which had a grey
wraparound camouflage pattern over its usual TPS scheme. Both planes are
featured in the photo gallery below. Some planes had Operation Iraqi Freedom
mission markings, including EA-6B 502 of VAQ-135 which had a KC-10 painted on
its nose! We were told this was probably due to the Prowler knocking the KC-10
out of action for some time, probably by snagging its hose during a botched
in-flight refueling.
Now, on to the pics!
Click on
images below to see larger images
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VRC-30
Providers - Grumman C-2A Greyhound |
Click on
images below to see larger images
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VFA-41
Black Aces - Boeing F/A-18F Super Hornet
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VFA-94
Mighty Shrikes - Boeing F/A-18C Hornet |
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VFA-97
Warhawks - Boeing F/A-18A Hornet
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VAW-117
Wallbangers - Grumman E-2C Hawkeye |
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VS-29
Dragonfires - Lockheed S-3B Viking |
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VS-29
Dragonfires - Lockheed S-3B Viking |
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HS-6
Indians - Sikorsky SH-60F/HH-60H Seahawk |
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Click on
images below to see larger images
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Click on
images below to see larger images
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Some photos of the artwork on a
buddy pod mounted on an S-3B Viking |
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Special thanks to COMLOG Westpac of the US Navy for making our
visit to the Nimitz possible, and the men and women of the Nimitz who made the
visit as fun as it was.
Enjoy the photos.
Mike Yeo, Horizon ModelTech
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