By Tami Overby
AMCHAM President
ABOARD AIRCARFT CARRIER USS NIMITZ ― The writer joined 19 Koreans on an unusual trip aboard the U.S. aircraft carrier USS Nimitz Wednesday. The diverse group included Kim Il-Joo, president of the Korean Leadership Academy; Cho Se-Hyun, president of the Health Promotion Center of Gangnam Cha Hospital; and a variety of others.
The 20 of us met and traveled by bus to Osan Airbase, where the participants received an orientation and safety briefing. The participants were a bit worried about the weather since they heard the group the day before, including U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow, had been turned back because of poor weather. But the participants were fortunate and the pilots gave a ``thumbs up'' and they began to suit up with helmets and a safety vests that inflate in the very unlikely event of landing on water.
They were then loaded onto a C-2A Greyhound, which is a twin propeller cargo aircraft used to deliver passengers, supplies and mail to and from the aircraft carrier.
The sheer size of the carrier is impressive as it is over 23-stories high and carries over 5,000 sailors. Approximately 13 percent of the crew is female and they do every job professionally. The writer was particularly impressed to see both young men and women working on deck together carrying out their mission in an incredibly professional fashion.
According to the carrier's catalogue, it is the lead ship of America's largest class of air craft carriers capable of accommodating at least 5,000 crew members.
It is possible to launch aircraft at a rate of one every 25-30 seconds. It successfully launched more than 228,000 aircraft since commissioning in 1975.
It has four distilling units enabling engineers to make more than 4,000 gallons of fresh water for use by the propulsion, catapults and crew. It can stock at least 70 days of refrigerated and dry goods. Literally tons of washing is done everyday for laundry, dry-cleaning and tailor-made services.
It is fully equipped with a dental facility staffed by five dentists.
Three chaplains conduct daily religious services in an interdenominational chapel. The average age of the crew is 19.5 years old.
Meals per day are 18,000-20,000 and mail processed per year totals over one million pieces.
The aircraft is a huge place, one where visitors can easily get lost unless familiar with the coded compartment numbers
Its primary offensive weapons are her ability to launch and recover high performance jet aircraft from the deck anytime.
Civilian visitors are puzzled by absence of any crew member smoking, the dearth of gun-carrying soldiers and relative ship-like atmosphere inside the carrier.
It is still a mystery where it will be heading in the future. More puzzling is the fact that the huge carrier looks like a small island on violent sea wave.
Landing and taking off on an aircraft carrier is quite exciting because planes are ``caught'' with a tail hook and are launched with a steam catapult. As a passenger sitting in a small, loud, dark plane without windows, the sudden jerk that stops the aircraft is quite thrilling but the writer personally found the "cat shot" or the catapult launch to be my favorite as we were thrown forward with such force for only a couple of seconds before we were once again airborne and heading back for Osan.
The time the writer spent on America's premier aircraft carrier was incredibly exciting and interesting. The participants were brought inside and given another safety briefing and additional safety equipment. This vest had several more devices like a strobe light, whistle and dye pack in the very unlikely event one should enter the water. Again, they were wearing helmets, but this time with additional ear plugs to protect them from the roar of the engines.
Then they were led out onto the busy flight deck where they watched from a few meters away as some of the world's most sophisticated aircraft were launched into the air. It was truly amazing to see them go from a standing start to speeds of over 170 miles per hour in less than three seconds. And the amount of space required for their take-offs was a 310-foot catapult sling. This was straight out of the movie "Top Gun." Watching the teams of young sailors so efficiently and effectively maneuver these $40 million jets on and off this very small space was an amazing sight.
After watching both launches and recoveries (landings) of over a dozen aircraft, they were led inside and given a tour of both the ship's bridge by Captain Michael Manazir and a separate bridge where Rear Admiral John Blake, the commander of the Carrier Strike Group gave us a briefing. Both seasoned Navy leaders were asked their opinion of the competency of the ROK Navy and it was very reassuring to hear their positive remarks. In addition, Rear Admiral Blake commented that in his over 30 years of visiting Korea, he thought the current joint operations between the U.S. Navy and the ROK Navy were "seamless" and interoperability was extremely high. Captain Manazir also reported that the ROK Navy docking facilities in Busan they used a few days ago were state of the art. He said that very few ports in the world have the ability to berth a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and he was very impressed with the Busan facility.
While on the ship's bridge, the participants were able to watch more launches and recoveries from the Captain's perspective. They also had an opportunity to chat with a few of the young sailors. The writer asked the young man who was piloting the ship at that time how old he was because he didn't look old enough to have a car driver's license, much less be steering a multi-billion dollar asset for the U.S. Navy. The 21-year-old sailor responded to all of the questions very professionally while never taking his eyes off the computer screen he was monitoring; safety of the ship was his first priority.
It was a fascinating day and one that left the writer feeling very proud of America's young sailors and reassured by the close relationship between the Korean and American Navies.