Saturday, January 12, 2008

USS Midway


We had some time to spend before Darryl had to work at the salt show so we went over to a retired aircraft carrier they have docked at the bay. They have made it into a museum now. It served in WWII and Desert Storm. What a neat thing to see. You just can't imagine what a complex place it is. It would have over 4,000 crew members on it during a mission. Plus dozens of helicopters and other aircraft. It's amazing to think they were able to build such a structure. I've never seen so much metal in one place in my life.
On board they have the actual air fight simulators that they pilots trained with. Darryl and I did a simulated mission. It was so neat. You set in an actual cockpit of a fighter plane and look at a huge screen that shows real life video. You fly the plane and shoot your enemies. You also have a head set on and a guy that is watching your flight yelling things like, "Nose up 101"(that was our plane number), "Their on your tail 101!", "Bank it hard, hard, hard!!!" What a thrill.

3 comments:

Jenny said...

I being a Naval Brat love that you saw this ship. I was born on Midway Island and the Uss Midway was named after "My Island" well the Battle of Midway at the end of WWII.
"The carrier battle of Midway Island in June 1942 turned the tide of World War II and proved conclusively the potential of naval aviation."
From the looks of this ship it is about as big has the whole Island of Midway! I am Jealous, I also think the simulators would be fun! Brian often is in sim's, but never gets to shoot things, he just try not to crash when they give him failures and error's and shut down his engines.

Rachel said...

I would love to do something like that, see the ship, be on it, play simulator games, shoot things!, and see a part of history that was pretty significant. good job for you guys.

Jenn said...

Wow Jen. It so interesting to learn something about you every day.