Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Pictures i found today, on Aircraft Carriers

This one made me Laugh.

USS John C. Stennis in San Diego bay

USS Port Royal in San Diego

USS Ronald Reagan at sea.  Its not sinking they are doing rudder checks in October 2007


USS Ronald Reagan crossing San Diego Harbor


USS_George_Washington


A Battleship out at sea.

Fun and Cool thing you can learn at work.

This comes from http://www.cnn.com/

USS Kitty Hawk says sayonara

YOKOSUKA, Japan (AP) -- The oldest active ship in the U.S. Navy, the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, made its final departure from Japan on Wednesday to be decommissioned after nearly half a century of service.

art.deck.ap.jpg

Sailors spell out "sayonara," or "farewell" in Japanese, as the Kitty Hawk leaves Japan for the last time.

Click to view previous image
2 of 2
Click to view next image

The Kitty Hawk, with sailors lining its decks, pulled away from Yokosuka port just south of Tokyo to the cheers of hundreds of schoolchildren and the sounds of brass bands.

The Kitty Hawk, the last conventionally powered aircraft carrier in the Navy, is to be replaced later this summer by the USS George Washington, a nuclear-powered carrier.

After leaving Japan, the Kitty Hawk will make a stop at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii and then travel on to the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington, to be decommissioned.

The ship, commissioned in 1961, was assigned to Japan in 1998. It has since made 20 deployments in the western Pacific and participated in Operation Enduring Freedom in Iraq.

It was the oldest active ship with the longest total period of active service in the Navy.

"Since it arrived in August 1998, the Kitty Hawk has been a visible symbol of strength in a rapidly changing world," U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer said. "Goodbye Kitty Hawk, hello George Washington."

The Kitty Hawk and its battle group are the centerpiece of the 7th Fleet, the largest in the Navy, with 40 to 50 ships, 120 aircraft and about 20,000 sailors and Marines. Roughly 21 of the ships are based in Japan and the Pacific island of Guam, while the others rotate out of ports in Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast.

Along with the other 7th Fleet ships, the battle group in Yokosuka, once a major Imperial Japanese Navy hub, has a huge area of responsibility -- covering 52 million square miles of the Pacific and Indian oceans, from the international dateline to the east coast of Africa.

Japan's leadership strongly backs the U.S. military presence in the country and says the more than 50,000 U.S. troops in Japan are a stabilizing force for all of Asia.

However, the replacement of the Kitty Hawk by a nuclear-powered ship is controversial among some here because of fears of an accident. Navy officials have stressed that the ship is safe and pointed out that nuclear-powered submarines have long transited Yokosuka with no problems.

Concerns about the George Washington were raised again earlier this month when a fire on the ship left one sailor with minor burns and 23 others with heat stress.

Sailors extinguished the fire several hours after flames were spotted near the auxiliary boiler room and air conditioning and refrigeration space in the rear of the ship. The Navy said the fire spread through a passageway for cables.

The George Washington is scheduled to be based at Yokosuka starting in August. 


The link is below. I spent 4-6 hours today learning about Aircraft Carriers, and which ones are currently working now, and what coming in the future.  I had a great time learning new things and found some cool pictures.  i will post them after this.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/05/28/japan.kitty.hawk.ap/index.html?iref=24hours


Sunday, May 25, 2008

Busy Busy

Its been busy pass few weeks. Well on Saturday May 17, 2008 it was a busy day.  Jo graduated from Boise State in the morning,  She got a degree in Commination.  The guest speaker was Barbara Morgan the teacher from McCall, Idaho the went into Space last year. She spoke on what was like and how it felt as she went into space.  One of the think that i learned from Barbara was that every 45 minutes there is sunset and sunrise, and some other things was how she discribe what it was like taking off.

That evening Joanna had her awards for Drama,  it was called the Tracy Edward Awards.  The awards were named after Tracy Edwards how passed away 5 1/2 years ago, its given to a Drama student that meet requirements that the teach has set.  I only know a few, some of them is that you have be in Act 3 Drama for 3-4 years, you have to have a speaking part in a play, have to be in charge of a tech part of a play (example, Makeup, Lights, ect.), have to be a director, have to gone to computations, all around goodness. There was 4 girls from this years class up for the award, the drama teacher Mrs. Link got up to announce  the winner, she went over what it took to be giving the Tracy Edwards award, and the winner of the award was Joanna Lang.

For Emi and I that was a long day.  It was a great day for us and the whole family.