"One Day To Fly"

[claidheamhmor]

The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt is currently anchored in Table Bay on a visit to Cape Town. I really wish I could get a close look at it.

Some facts I read about the Theodore Roosevelt though, to put things in perspective:

• With a crew of well over 5000, the Theodore Roosevelt has more military personnel than the entire South African Navy.
• With 90 aircraft and helicopters, the Theodore Roosevelt has many times more combat aircraft than the entire South African Air Force. Not only more, but significantly more capable too.

And here we're talking only of the aircraft carrier, not the naval group that wanders around with it.

According to the unofficial Theodore Roosevelt website, the carrier was where the well-known "crewman sucked into jet intake" incident took place.

Comments

[redqueenmeg.livejournal.com]

:) I saw the Ronald Reagan and several other carriers when I was out in San Diego this summer. Seeing a carrier in a movie just isn't the same.

[pcb.livejournal.com]

Just hope that Bush hasn't found out that SA has got enormous oil reserves then...

[claidheamhmor]

No, we don't; it's Zimbabwe that has all the oil in Southern Africa. *looks hopeful*

[pcb.livejournal.com]

With America, does truth really matter if they fancy moving in?
And sorting out Zim would be altruistic. Unless we talk about the oil.

I'd duck.

[argonel.livejournal.com]

To be fair there aren't very many navies with more sailors than a single aircraft carrier. Same for the number of air forces with more combat aircraft/combat power. Off the top of my head with no research I will say Russia and China for sure, and UK, France, Germany, Australia, and Japan as probables. Beyond that I would have to do some research.

[claidheamhmor]

Very true. It still makes for an interesting comparison though!

[magependragon.livejournal.com]

It is a very big ship! It dominates the bay right now and causes traffic delays when ever something happens on it - helicopter taking off/lowering something mainly. I don't think the saliors have come ashore yet or if they have, they are being very sneaky as they haven't been spotted yet.

[ubet-cha.livejournal.com]

Life aboard a carrier is about as good as it gets in the Navy IF you can put up with the noise and the long lines during Chow. I used to bring books with me to read while I waited to eat. Going on Liberty was also drag. Too many damn sailors. At 20 I learned to start taking trips two towns over to get away from them.

I can’t speak for the Teddy, but the crew man getting sucked into the intake happens on almost every carrier. It happened on the Kitty Hawk ( CV-63) when I was stationed on it in 1987 during a world cruise ( The guy didn’t make it) and I have a video of it happening on the Ranger during Desert Storm in 1991 where the airman crawled out of the A6 engine then collapsed. The tape came to me in the summer of 91 from Phillip Brozak who was stationed on the Ranger at the time. His brother served with me on the guided missle cruiser Virginia ( CGN-38)

The funniest thing ( only because no one was hurt) was I saw when stationed on the Kitty Hawk happened outside of Pearl Harbor. A helicopter was trying to land on the flight deck and cut its engines in high winds, immediately plunging into the Pacific.

We used to play the tape on CC TV whenever we did the ships news.

[claidheamhmor]

Sounds like a pretty cool experience to live on board a carrier! (Except for the accidents...)

[teaser.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's time for you to take that road trip to go and see it!

[lyonza.livejournal.com]

Wanna dash down to CT for a gander?!

*really wants to be there when the boys go on shore leave*

**wicked grynne**

[claidheamhmor]

Heh. Seems a bit far just to see a ship...

[lyonza.livejournal.com]

Heh... hence the shoreleave. I'm sure we'd find you a hot LtCmdr or three. A crew of 5000 there are bound to be lots of them.

[claidheamhmor]

Yeah...but not so many female ones. :)

[lyonza.livejournal.com]

Don't you worry, I will find you some (and I was referring to the ladies in the first place).

I'm quite happy with the ratings ;) More to choose from. *grynne*

[gsl.livejournal.com]

Some years ago I was able to visit the british carrier Ark Royal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Ark_Royal_(91)), when it was visiting Oslo. We were allowed to walk around on the landing deck and in the hangar, it was quite interesting.
I've also been able to walk around on the deck of BB61, USS Iowa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_class_battleship), the Ticonderoga class CG52, Bunker Hill (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticonderoga_class_cruiser), on this we were allowed to walk through the bridge too, but we weren't allowed into the CIC, and they got a little grumpy when someone tried to sit in the captains chair. And I think I have visited one of the russian Sovremenny class (http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/sovremenny/) boats, but don't remember the name of it. That is, I know I've visited it, I just don't remember if it was that class of boat I visited, it had a different configuration of the missile launch tubes IIRC.

[claidheamhmor]

Those sound really cool; I'm envious.