Aircraft Carrier Archives

Aircraft Carrier USS Abraham Lincoln Serves as Location for Top Gun’ Sequel

September 8, 2018/in Letters from Hollywood

Aircraft Carrier USS Abraham Lincoln Serves as Location for Top Gun' Sequel

Aircraft Carrier USS Abraham Lincoln Serves as Location for Top Gun’ Sequel

“Top Gun: Maverick,” the sequel to the 1986 Hollywood blockbuster “Top Gun,” is working to fulfill the need for speed aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.

According to service spokesperson Lt. Cdr. Daniel Day, the Navy is supporting one shoot aboard USS Abraham Lincoln, per a Production Assistance Agreement signed by Paramount Pictures and the Department of Defense.

“Our priority will always be war-fighting, and training combat-ready Naval aviation forces … That being said, we believe we can support the film and simultaneously achieve training objectives,” Day said.

The crew is shooting footage on the flight deck of air operations, which will likely pair the Navy’s new Lockheed Martin F-35C Lightning II Joint Strike Fighters alongside older Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornets from Virginia Beach-based Carrier Air Wing Seven, taking off and landing as part of their carrier qualifications. Paramount will reimburse the Navy for any costs associated with flying sequences that do not meet training objective.

“This opportunity is one of many aircraft carrier embarks planned pier-side and at sea on both coasts coordinated by the Commander, Naval Air Forces,” said Naval Air Force Atlantic spokesman Cmdr. Dave Hecht.

The sequel has Tom Cruise reprising his role as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell and Val Kilmer back as Tom “Iceman” Kazansky. Miles Teller is playing the son of Maverick’s best friend, Nick “Goose” Bradshaw, who was killed in the original film during a training accident.

Rounding out the cast is Jennifer Connolly, Glen Powell, Jon Hamm, Ed Harris, Lewis Pullman, Charles Parnell, Bashir Salahuddin, Monica Barbaro, Danny Ramirez, and Jay Ellis.

Movie producer John Davis claimed that Top Gun was a recruiting video for the Navy, that people saw the movie and said, “Wow! I want to be a pilot.” After the film’s release, the US Navy stated that the number of young men who joined wanting to be Naval Aviators went up by 500 percent.

The sequel had a tentative release date of July 2019 but now appears likely to hit theaters in June 2020… 34 years after the original movie made its debut.

Newest Aircraft Carrier Has Issues With Planes Landing and Taking Off

June 30, 2017/in Government, Military, Military News

ford ship

By Debbie Gregory.

The U.S. Navy took delivery of its newest and costliest U.S. aircraft carrier on May 31^st , which should be great news.

But it turns out that the system used to launch and capture jets to and from the USS Gerald R. Ford is having issue doing both.

While the Navy reports that the landing system has been fixed, the carrier hasn’t received clearance to launch F/A-18 jets yet. The catapult problem, which was discovered in 2014, limits how much combat fuel can be carried in planes being launched from the carrier’s deck.

The aircraft are limited as to the types of missions that they can accomplish without added under-wing fuel tanks.

John McCain, the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee has been a vocal critic of the Navy’s management of the Ford program.

While it’s encouraging to see the Ford “finally delivered to the Navy,” the Arizona Republican said the Navy’s funding request for it exceeds the congressional budget cap by $20 million. The third and final ship of the planned three-ship, $42 billion Ford class of carriers is projected to cost $1.6 billion more than the second one.

“This is unacceptable for a ship certified to be a repeat design that will deliver just three years later,” McCain said.

Most of the cost increase was due to an underfunded technology phase that didn’t allow enough time for the discovery and correction of problems.

The ship is named after the 38th President of the United States Gerald R. Ford, whose World War II naval service included combat duty aboard the light aircraft carrier Monterey in the Pacific Theater.

The Navy still has time to fix the catapult issue. Although the Ford has been delivered, the ship is not scheduled to be declared ready for operations until 2020, with first actual deployment planned for about 2022, according to Navy spokeswoman Captain Thurraya Kent.

Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve, and their families.

Navy Decommissions the USS Enterprise

February 9, 2017/in Military, Military News

By Debbie Gregory.

After 55 years of service, the world’s first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS Enterprise, has been decommissioned.

Known as “Big E,” the warship has played a role in major world events from the 1962 Cuban missile crisis to the recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The USS Enterprise has spent the past several years being defueled and dismantled at Newport News Shipbuilding, the shipyard where it was built and refueled.

The decommissioning ceremony, a long-honored naval tradition, retires a ship from service through a variety of ceremonial services, including lowering the ship’s commissioning pennant.

Capt. Todd Beltz, commanding officer of the Enterprise, addressed the ship’s company, former commanding officers and distinguished visitors and spoke of where the true spirit of the Big E comes from.

“For all that Enterprise represents to this nation, it’s the people that bring this ship to life,” said Beltz. “So as I stand in this ship that we all care so much about, I feel it’s appropriate to underscore the contributions of the thousands of Sailors and individuals that kept this ship alive and made its reputation. We are ‘The Big E.’”

The ship was christened Sep. 24, 1960, by Mrs. Bertha Irene Franke, wife of former Secretary of the Navy William B. Franke. It has an active veterans’ group dedicated to preserving its history, which includes launching the first aircraft strikes in Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism attacks on the U.S.

Enterprise was the eighth naval vessel to carry the name, dating back to the Revolutionary War.

The Navy has said a future Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier also will be called Enterprise. Sailors from the carrier’s final crew built a time capsule from parts of the ship and allowed former sailors to fill it with notes and mementos. The time capsule will be opened by the commanding officer of the next Enterprise.

Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve, and their families.

New Year Saw Rare Aircraft Carrier Deployment Gap

January 31, 2017/in Government, Military, Military News

By Debbie Gregory.

As the first month of 2017 draws to an end, we learned a very interesting fact.

For the first week of this year, for the first time since World War II, no U.S. aircraft carriers were deployed, anywhere, a Navy spokesman confirmed.

Had the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, which had been in the Persian Gulf, delayed its return to its homeport of Norfolk, VA by a few days, this would not have been the case.

The unusual gap in carrier presence is due in part to longer-than-expected maintenance for the USS George H.W. Bush, which was supposed to take eight months, but ended up taking 13 months. The Navy blamed the delay on increased wear and tear that resulted from an extended deployment. If it had left when it was supposed to, instead of on January 21^st, it would have relieved the Eisenhower in the Gulf.

The George H.W. Bush is the tenth and final Nimitz-class supercarrier of the United States Navy, named for the 41st President of the United States. Construction began in 2003at the Northrop Grumman Newport News shipyard’s Dry Dock 12, the largest in the western hemisphere, and was completed in 2009 at a cost of $6.2 billion.

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said the absence of a carrier in the Gulf or the Pacific does not mean the U.S. is vulnerable.

The USS Carl Vinson is on routine deployment to the Western Pacific after having received some $300 million worth of improvements.

The USS Makin Island, an amphibious assault ship, is on deployment in the Middle East. The ship is smaller than an aircraft carrier and deploys with Marines, landing craft and helicopters.

“We have had a significant presence in both those areas and will continue to have a significant presence even though we may not at any one particular time have an aircraft carrier there,” Cook said.

Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve, and their families.