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Bill[_7_] Bill[_7_] is offline
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Default USS Kitty Hawk on her way to breakers at Bremerton 09-02-08 "USS Kitty Hawk 2_resize.jpg" yEnc (1/1)

In article ,
cavelamb himself wrote:

Those two didn't qwork.

Just binary characters...


I got them both OK.

I spent many months looking at USS Kitty Hawk and other carriers from
one or another accompanying destroyer, day and night, in all kinds of
weather, usually at darken ship. Hard to see even an aircraft carrier at
night at darken ship. On the other hand, during flight ops, they would
have the deck lights on.

It can be very hard to tell the aspect of an aircraft carrier at night.
You have to really be on your toes. In my experience, they would change
course and speed without signal to the accompanying ships in response to
the needs of flight ops. You had to be on your toes as OOD of a
destroyer to keep track of what the carrier was doing. The most
important thing was to keep from getting run over. After attending to
that need, you could look after the rest of the mission of providing
rescue services for downed aviators, providing anti-submarine and
anti-aircraft protection, and any other tasks needed.

Had to refuel the destroyer every 2 or 3 days. We would often refuel
from the carrier. Go alongside the starboard side, a hundred feet or so
away, matching his course and speed to keep station with hose rigs over
fore and aft. Speed might be around 15 knots. It might take 30 minutes
to an hour, depending on the situation. The starboard side view of the
Kitty Hawk in these pictures reminded me vividly of that, though in
refueling we were a whole lot closer than in those pictures. 100 feet is
about 1/4 the length of the destroyer and about 1/10 the length of the
carrier. The fueling stations on the carrier were on the two elevators
on the starboard side, fore and aft of the island. The overhang of the
flight deck would at times seem to be above the destroyer. Sometimes the
carrier would be launching and recovering aircraft while refueling a
destroyer. Had to frequently make small adjustments to heading and speed
on the destroyer to keep station, adding or dropping a turn or two to
adjust speed, changing heading by a degree one way or the other. Of
course the sea was seldom flat, and wave action affected the ships. No
one could let their attention wander for a moment.

--
Bill Collins
For email, change "fake" to "earthlink"