FEET DRY: Back from Nimitz
January 13th, 2010 | Photography | Posted by Erik Hildebrandt
JUST BACK FROM NIMITZ
After a long but uneventful transit via Northwest/KLM through Amsterdam, I made it to Bahrain late Sunday night and was met by Navy 5th Fleet Public Affairs CDR. Chris Sims and LCDR Corey Barker. I managed to grab a very short 5 hours in the rack before reporting for the 2.5 hour COD flight out to Nimitz first thing Monday morning. With all flight off the carrier supporting the ongoing OEF activity in Afghanistan, the boat is operating way south of Bahrain in the Gulf of Oman since all flights are overflying Pakistan to get in-country. Within an hour of trapping aboard Nimitz, I was sitting in the brief with VFA-41 getting the gouge for the planned photo ex that was already in place. The plan was to take a simultaneous covey launch with the Prowler and then chase them up the “Boulevard” air route that all tactical aircraft follow in transit to the Afghan kill boxes, and then circle back and join up with each subsequent strike element as they were shot off the bow behind us. The weather was clear above 5K, but the layer of clouds obscured the Pakistani coastline. As a result, the images I will post show the various strike elements during their transit right up to going “feet dry” over the southern coast of Pakistan, but with clouds instead of desert in the background. There will be some video from the cockpit eventually, but I wanted to get these posted quickly before heading off to Al Udid in Qatar first thing Thursday. I am writing this on from my state room aboard Nimitz on Wednesday morning and will be able to make a data-dump/upload from the Air Unit back in Bahrain. While flying in the helo around the boat yesterday shooting the launch and recovery, one of my cameras was fried by the ship’s radar if you can believe that, so I will be making an emergency run to the camera shop in Bahrain to buy another Nikon D3 to finish up this trip. Thanks for checking in, and I will make another upload hopefully when I get back from Qatar and before heading to Bagram and Camp Bastion in Afghanistan.
Erok out
