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Visit to the USS Nimitz (CVN-68) |
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by Mike Yeo, Horizon ModelTech |
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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-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!
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
Miscellaneous Pictures
Some photos of the artwork on a buddy pod mounted on an S-3B Viking
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. Mike
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Photos and text © by Mike Yeo
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