Friday, July 23, 2004

The Ronald Reagan arrives to her home CVN-76, the USS Ronald Reagan, pulled into her homeport of San Diego for the first time today.  Thousands of spectators were at the peir to see the arrival.  Nancy Reagan was there as well. Capt. Andres "Drew" Brugal, the executive officer, said he thrilled to be hosting Mrs. Reagan aboard the ship. "Obviously it's kind of a sad time right now, so close to the president's death. She's the sponsor of the ship and we're very happy to see her," he said. Mrs. Reagan visited the ship's Ronald Reagan Room, a museum featuring the former president's cavalry uniform, movie posters, a video presentation and a chunk of the Berlin wall. In a nod to Reagan's Hollywood days, the ship also has a celebrity walk of fame with such names as Alfred Hitchcock and Spencer Tracy on the mess deck. Make your namesake proud, shipmates. Military comment []3:17:54 PM   trackback []

The return of the Navy jets to Hampton Roads. With planes from NAS Oceana in Virginia Beach aboard each of the carriers in Summer Flex 04, it's been awfully quiet in the Hampton Roads area. With the return of the George Washington and Harry Truman, the sound of freedom is about to fill the skies once again. The jet noise issue has been a perennial one ever since NAS Cecil Field in Jacksonville was closed and most of their jets were moved to Oceana. For almost all of my childhood I was never far away from a Navy runway.  Most of the time I was regaled with the sweet sound of the turboprops of the P-3 Orion.  In high school however, I was but a couple miles away from the Fentress Field mentioned in the article, which is where our F-14s practiced at.  It certainly got noisy at times, but I never minded. Back in the 80's there was a poster from one of the aviation companies that summed up the situation perfectly.  It read: GOT A PROBLEM WITH JET NOISE? DO THE JETS LOOK LIKE THIS? (picture of Soviet MIG-21) NO?  THEN WHAT'S THE PROBLEM? Military comment []3:04:52 PM   trackback []