Tiger Cruise 2018 (CVN-70, lots of images)

A friend of mine from the community, and someone who I fly with regularly, invited me along on something called a Tiger Cruise. He's a member of the Navy, so once every blue moon they get an opportunity to invite family or friends along on the boat that they're serving on. And they do this after a deployment on it's trip home. (This particular trip was from Honolulu to San Diego) As he described to me what this "cruise" entailed, my jaw hit the desk, and my envy for going on such a trip went through the roof. If only I could convince the wife to letting me out of the house for a week.

Just a quick background on myself, and why this meant so much to me ... as a child, I was diagnosed with asthma at the age of 7. Some people say they have "asthma" ... and they might. But then some unfortunate souls REALLY have "ASTHMA". And I was one of those. This disease nearly killed me on 5 separate occasions. As a kid, I couldn't go anywhere without my inhaler. If I even went to the grocery store, and forgot my inhaler, a panic attack would ensue, as would an asthma attack shortly afterwards. In high school, I suffered from it more than ever. I couldn't make it half way down a soccer field without keeling over. This really hit hard because I had played for 7 years before that, and was quite good at it. And it got to the point where if I went from a cold classroom to a hot classroom, that would do it.

A week before turning 13, I intercepted a letter from the air force addressed to my older brother. "screw him" I thought "I'm the one that wants the air force more than anyone else". So I opened it, and can clearly remember half way down, third paragraph, second bullet, it said " - automatic disqualification includes anyone over the age of 13, with a history of asthma." Needless to say ... I was crushed.

My grades in high school slipped, because why did I care? The idiot in the back of biology class, who can't tie his shoes correctly, was going to the Army after high school. But I, who could basically list every weapon, tank, aircraft, ship, and associated stats, can't go anywhere I wanted to. No one in my family, and no one I knew, was a pilot or knew of a pilot; so it seemed that the military was the only way to get into any flying program. Long story short, I pulled my grades together because figured I needed to make a living doing something. And later, just before graduating college, I found out I could fly commercially with no restrictions (also ... asthma is still in my life, but no where near what it used to be. I can run a 5k without any problems now.) So today I get to do what I've always dreamed of.... minus the afterburner.

These 5 days on the USS Carl Vinson was a brief view into a life that I always wanted to live, but never could.

Without further ado, here's some photo's from the trip:

Heads up, I don't have any action shots on the camera (save for a couple things), I did most all the airshow/seashow bomb and gun demonstrations on my camcorder.

The flight into Hawaii was on a United 777. It was actually booked to 100%, so because of the perks of my job, I still got on, but had to take a seat in the cockpit jumpseat.

Boats, boats, and more boats!

A picture from the first time we went up on the deck (in port)

Here I am with my friend on the flight deck.

All the gouges from the tail-hooks striking the deck

Me trying to do an artistic angle shot of the cat (and all it's glorious red grease)

No words for this (Arizona memorial with the Battleship Missouri beyond. The beginning and the end of WWII for the US, and we're sailing past it on one of the most powerful ships the world has ever seen)

Getting pulled out of the dock via multiple tugs

I'll take "what is the most expensive collection of hardware in one frame, for $400, Alex"

A view down a "p-way" at night. I got lost many a time on this ship. It wasn't until day 4 that I started feeling comfortable making my way around. Even then though, it was horribly inefficient, as I would go out of my way to stay on known paths.

Our 4-star sleeping quarters. We actually had it good as there were only 3 bunks in this cubicle. The one Fumes had was the standard 6. Here's my best friend from childhood that I got to bring along.

Never been out of sight of land before. This was an incredible sight

The first of many FOD walk-downs.

Alright, let's start launching this s***!

The escort wanted to come by and watch too

YES YES YES

Oh lord it was amazing

AGAIN!

Some more cat launch stuff

Everybody coming together

At the end of the first airshow (there were 2) we went to the fan tail to watch the arrivals. it was pretty damn awesome

Day two of the airshows started off with a picturesque view

Ok ... now LAUNCH 'EM!!!

A busy flight deck

Mid-air refueling demo

Here we stayed up on Vulture's row for the recoveries.

3 wire!

Dumping fuel to make landing weight

Another recovery

The Skipper later poked fun at himself for driving the boat into the only rainstorm on the horizon (during recoveries no less) This made an aircraft switch from Case 1 to Case 3. Making things more difficult was that this plane was low on fuel, and the tanker already dumped his ... so if he missed, they would have had to scramble up a tanker F-18 to refuel him. He made it on without issue though thankfully.

Boat coming abeam for the sea demo.

During the sea power demonstration, the 3 escort ships all came along side and showed us some of their shooty thingies. It was really cool to see the shells hitting the water way in the distance.

After that, it was on to the races! We lost in the 6 mile drag race. A bunch of crap if you ask me.

Me pretending to be someone important. I didn't fool anyone

We lost the race earlier. Probably because the water is a big TRAITOR! Let's SHOOT IT and show it who's boss (50 cal and suspected 20mm)

Onward! It's actually scary to see the amount of water this thing moves.

Last night with the planes on the deck

All these tie-down holes are painted grey, except for this one. When Bin Laden was brought to this ship after his fateful run in with the special forces, this is the tie-down he bled into.

Final fly-off the day before pulling into San Diego

Hope you enjoyed the pictures folks! I have tons of others, and plenty of video, just didn't want to jam up this whole forum with the massive upload this was.

- Apache600

OMG, great pics! And you are SO f’ing lucky! Thx for sharing!

Good stuff!

lucky ... great pics!

Very nice pics, thanks for posting!

Thanks for sharing. I was on the Carl Vinson (Chuck Pig) from 89-92 (Reactor Operations).... good times. I brought my Father onboard for the Tiger Cruise we did in 90, it was awesome to share the experience with him. Glad you had a chance to experience the same!

Awesome! thank you for posting these. Great pics!

Wow, cool stuff Apache! Must have been amazing, remember you telling that you're going to go there. Thanks for sharing!

I'd sell my soul to be able to do that :P

ohhh, awesome stuff, thanks for sharing!!

and lucky you, b*st*rd !!!!

Amazing pics thank you! Roughly whereabouts on the flight deck was the red tie-down point?