Another XO video — but this one’s G-rated
April 15th, 2011 | Carriers Morale Navy Newport News Photos Refueling and Complex Overhaul Shipyard Video | Posted by Bill McMichael
The executive officer of the carrier Theodore Roosevelt has narrated a new ship-produced video that has popped up on YouTube. The Navy’s probably happier with this video than some other recent ones.
Narrated by the XO, Capt. Douglas Verissimo, and featuring his CO, Capt. William Hart, in a walk-on part, the video touts the carrier’s ongoing Refueling and Complex Overhaul at Newport News Shipbuilding.
Verissimo supplies dramatic narration over images of sailors wielding welding torches and needle guns, all working “to prepare for another 25 years of vital missions to come.”
“Join us as we prepare to return to the fleet,” says Hart at the video’s conclusion. “Theodore Roosevelt’s getting ready.”
The aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt departs Naval Station Norfolk Sept. 29, 2009, and begins a towing operation to Newport News Shipbuilding for a Refueling and Complex Overhaul. // Photo courtesy of U.S. Navy
The video is meant “to inform and inspire the ship’s prospective crew members, current TR Sailors and the nation of the momentous efforts involved in rebuilding the ship and returning her to the fleet,” according to a press release.
“We have a very strong crew, doing great things every day, and we are rightfully very proud of our efforts to return this battle-tested carrier back to operations in the fleet,” said Hart. “This video is our way of reminding the nation and our sailors we are in an extended overhaul right now, but we’ll be back even stronger and more ready than we were when we came into the yards.”
The virtual Navy
April 11th, 2011 | Carriers Naval aviation Newport News Sea Air Space | Posted by Joshua Stewart
Huntington Ingalls Industries must have made a Best Buy run before they set up their stall at the Navy League’s Sea Air Space Exposition. Exhibitors use all sorts of displays to show off their goodies, but HII’s came complete with video games and a huge 3-D television, which would make teenage boys everywhere incredibly jealous … at least if they came here.
The video game ran on an X-Box but it wasn’t getting much attention, maybe because the objective was to fight fires on a flight deck. It’s just not quite the same as “Call of Duty.”
Nearby was a projection of one of the pump rooms for Gerald R. Ford, the first ship in the next class of nuclear aircraft carriers. A half dozen people donning heavy 3-D glasses gathered around and looked at the computer-generated pictures of color-coded pipes and pumps.
As the company representative said, the 3-D module lets people involved with the design, construction and maintenance of Ford see exactly where everything is positioned, what can be improved and how personnel can move around “with only a few getting motion sickness.”
As of 10:30 a.m. nobody seemed to need any dramamine.
While HII had 3-D technology and video games, Boeing had a Super Hornet simulator. A few people were waiting to take the front seat but nobody was interested in sitting in the back to play virtual flight officer.
Christmas in Everett
December 14th, 2010 | Carriers Maintenance Navy Newport News Shipyard | Posted by Bill McMichael
The cheering probably hasn’t stopped in Everett, Wash. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus was the bearer of glad tidings and Christmas cheer Dec. 9 when he announced that the carrier Nimitz, for the past nine years based in San Diego, would be homeported at Everett Naval Station after 12 months of scheduled maintenance at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in nearby Bremerton.
The carrier Nimitz pulls into Bremerton on Dec. 9 for a year-long overhaul at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. // KOMO-TV
A Dec. 10 editorial in the Seattle Times noted that “Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Rick Larsen, Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon and Everett Mayor Ray Stephanson … were buoyed by the good news for the economy and the compliment to the quality work done at Naval Station Everett, and the civilian support it receives.”
The compliment was nice. But replacing the carrier Abraham Lincoln, being lost next year to a multi-year overhaul in Newport News, Va., following its current deployment, and maintaining such a powerful generator for the local economy, is the much bigger deal. A carrier brings with it millions in federal money for carrier services and support and area improvements, as well as the millions sailors spend on rent, utilities, shopping, and local and state taxes collected on same.
San Diego, meanwhile, is now down two carriers — but only until 2016, when a new flattop will arrive; a spokesman for Rep. Susan Davis says she was given that news by CNO Adm. Gary Roughead, according to NBC SanDiego. The Lincoln’s overhaul and refueling will take more than three years — near-perfect timing, it would seem, to fill that void.