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Day One | DayTwo
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Four | Credits
Day Two- February 14, 2009
Stores
Conveyor System
It is “the next morning” after a
very busy day of activities and about 75 trips up and down
stairs and ladders and through winding hallways of the ship.
It is also after our first night spent sleeping in the upper
bunk of my assigned crew space and navigating unfamiliar hallways
and ladders to my assigned crew “head” (or water
closet and showering facilities – mine is three hallways
and one ladder down away!) My berthing is level “O3”
which is three levels “over” the main hangar deck.
The “main deck” hangar is the covered area three
levels underneath the flight deck. When the air wing is onboard,
the aircraft are stored down here. It is where most gear is
loaded into and then moved from.
During sea trials, the hangar deck is the “main street”
of the ship – where we meet up with other sea trial
teams, where crew units meet for physical training or stand-up
meetings, the place where I can get to anywhere from anywhere
on the ship – especially that first day when I get lost
and have to reorient to get to where I am going.
The outline of several square hatches of different sizes
are painted on the floor. One of the hatches has been removed,
and safety pylons connected to a safety chain encircle one
hole in the deck, and I can see a crewmember with a walkie-talkie
standing in a hole in the deck, with the floor of the main
deck about shoulder high. Standing nearby are three NAVSEA
inspectors learning about the stores conveyor system that
MM1 Dawn Fortenberry is demonstrating for
them.
“We’re looking at how the equipment handles,
testing the safety features and the equipment operation,”
says Donald “Keith” Andrews,
an inspector for SupShip Newport News. “We are also
seeing if the crew is following the procedures outlined for
operation. We want to be sure the crew has the equipment they
need and know how to use it properly.”
“There are two stores conveyors – one goes from
the main deck to the seventh deck (below the hangar deck)
and the other one goes down to the sixth deck,” says
NAVSEA representative Bryan Plunkett. “They
are designed to not crush the stores boxes, to travel at variable
speed and to deliver materiel from hangar deck level to the
open door level it is programmed to go to – used to
move incoming supplies to decks below.” This is a case
where the automated equipment is replacing a transition that
used to be done all by hand, through hallways and down ladders.
– Margaret Mitchell-Jones
Dropping
bombs
What has 64 doors, can carry up to 10,500 pounds
at 100 feet per minute and goes from seventh deck to hangar
bay? Bush’s newly designed weapons elevators. Aviation
Ordinance Chief Corey Grojean and Mark Culp
of the CVN 77 Carrier Construction Dept. (X05) took me down
to the “bomb room,” as I like to call it, and
showed me how bombs, missiles and various other weapons are
carried to the upper levels to be placed on the ship’s
airplanes. “This is a brand-new system, totally hydraulic,”
Grojean says. Culp adds, “The system is operated by
touch screen, no more buttons or levers. This is fancy stuff
here.” – Lauren Green
“Will
you interview us?”
As I was interviewing Corey Grojean
and Mark Culp about the ship’s weapons
elevators, two bright-eyed young men sporting green fatigue
uniforms stopped me and asked, “Will you interview us?”
Sure, why not? Besides, I was dying to ask what the difference
was between the green and the blue fatigue uniforms. Mike
Rivera and Kevin Jones are military
policemen; for both, it’s their first time to sea. “This
is the first time we finally get to get away from the shipyard
and the Navy base,” Jones says. “I’m planning
on re-enlisting because I’m excited and ready to protect
our country and the world.” Rivera later explains to
me that the blue uniforms are a working uniform for selected
rates. “Green is for the Navy police, like me,”
he says. “I hope to wear the blue suit someday; that’s
where I want to be.” – Lauren Green
“Dentists
are crewmembers, too”
Lt. Gershon has been with the
crew of USS George H.W. Bush for the past six months.
Dr. Gershon has been in the Navy for three years, and this
is her first afloat tour. After graduating from college, she
attended dental school in Nebraska, courtesy of the U.S. Navy.
Dr. Gershon is going to relieve Lt. Stanchak
as general officer when Lt. Stanchak completes her tour with
the Navy, in June 2009, after which she plans to enter orthodontist
school.
“We have a captain and three lieutenants who are dentists,
a hygienist and about eleven dental technicians onboard,”
Dr. Gershon says. “When deployed, there is also an oral
surgeon onboard, and the air wing brings a flight surgeon
with them. In the dental area, there are four exam rooms,
an X-ray room equipped to take digital panoramic X-rays, some
offices, a records room and supply room.
“We have a dental record for every crew member –
that’s over 3,000 records,” she continues. “And
we get at least a thousand more when the air wing moves aboard.
We can do anything out of this dentist office that you can
do at your dentist office – exams, X-rays, preventative
maintenance, extractions, drill and fill cavities and even
start root canals. We have a lab onboard that can process
castings and porcelain for crowns.”
Last week there was a broken jaw onboard, and the dental
office was able to stabilize the jaw and send the patient
to the hospital, since the ship was in port,” she said.
The dentists onboard see about 25 patients a
day for exams (every crewmember is required to have an annual
dental exam), and they schedule dental appointments every
hour on the hour. “People are always surprised at the
amount of dental and medical capability we have onboard,”
Dr. Gershon says. “This is my first ship and my first
deployment, and I’m very excited to be a member of this
crew. As a doctor, I enjoy having the opportunity to provide
continuity of care – to have patients that we see regularly,
so we can catch dental issues before they become big problems,
to help our Navy crewmembers develop good dental habits.”
While she has never been deployed before, she did hear that
there may be opportunities to provide dental support to local
communities they may visit on port calls. – Margaret
Mitchell-Jones
Dessert,
anyone?
Another day means three more meals – four
for some. Aboard the ship, four square meals are served: breakfast,
lunch, dinner and “midrats,” or midnight rations.
Main galley alone serves about 2,000 hungry sailors for each
meal. That’s 5,000 pounds of beef per day, just for
that galley. When the crew is full, there are galleys open
that serve well over 5,000 crew members. HTFN (Home Maintenance
Technician) Misty Fortunas is on Bush for
her first cruise. “It tickled my tummy to feel the ship
move for the first time,” she says. Misty backs up the
galley’s cooks by serving food in the food lines. “I
love my job,” she says. “I get to meet a lot of
people and put smiles on their faces. I’m usually the
one handing out desserts.” – Lauren
Green
“People
my age …”
Master Shipbuilder Ray Watson
is showing off some of his work: the No. 6 air conditioning
unit near the stern of the ship. It intakes 3,300 gallons
of chilled water per minute and utilizes a 2,000-gallon tank
of refrigerant to cool just one of six zones aboard the ship.
Watson worked as a fitter for more than 30 years before taking
on the air conditioning installation job. “It’s
a great feeling when someone can come in here and switch this
and start it up for the first time and it runs,” he
says. Ray says working on the A/C units was a great learning
experience, especially for someone who worked in “the
structural world” for so long. “People my age
usually whine and cry about how it used to be in the past,”
he says. “Well, I couldn’t do that because I didn’t
know how it used to be. … It’s a really good thing
for you, when you get to be 55, 60 years old, trying something
new if you get the opportunity.” – Jim
Roberts
“A
totally different animal”
MM1 Dan Krys runs one of two Oxygen plants
aboard USS George H.W. Bush, creating and storing
up to 250 gallons of pure liquid oxygen – primarily
for the pilots but also for medical use. Krys has also served
on USS Tripoli and USS George Washington,
but the Oxygen plant aboard Bush is new to him. (Charles Doeppe,
the X42 general foreman who installed the plant, says, “This
is just a totally different animal.”) Krys loves his
job and the opportunity that the Navy has afforded him. “I
wouldn’t do anything else,” he says. “I
came into the Navy with just a high school education, and
now they’ve got me doing stuff like this. If you would
have told me that when I was 18, I would have said I’m
probably not the person for that, but the schooling that I
got in the Navy teaches me all kinds of stuff.”
The
Maytag repairman
Scott Ahearn of the Technology
Development Dept. (E30) is checking the “hockey puck”
makers – the machines used to compress plastic refuse
into easy-to-dispose-of discs. All six aboard Bush are “working
as expected,” but he doesn’t feel like his job
is done. “I don’t really feel like I’m finishing
just yet,” he says. “I feel like we’re making
good progress here. It’s good to be able to look at
a space and say we don’t have to do anything more here
and can hand this over to the Navy with confidence that it
will work to our standards – and to my standards as
well. I don’t hand over broken equipment.” So
when will he feel like he’s finished? “I would
say six months after acceptance trials when none of my machines
are broken. That’s when I’ll put my feet up.”
– Jim Roberts
The
absolute bottom end of the ship
Gary Carter leads us down a
series of vertical ladders to the absolute bottom end of the
ship. He’s showing off the aft steering gears he and
his Machiney Installation (X43) team installed two and a half
years ago. He did the same job on USS Stennis and
USS Reagan, a point he sums up by saying, “I’ve
been down here many years.” The sea trials have gone
well, and although he’s too modest to say it, it’s
obvious he’s proud of the work he and his team have
done. “It’s a pretty tough system to groom,”
he says. “The tolerances are real tight. … Everything’s
been running real good, and the accuracy is good.” –
Jim Roberts
Cleaning
up the waste
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Kenny Lupton is showing us
the VCMSD (Vacuum Control Marine Sanitation Device). The system
uses a vacuum instead of gravity to run the toilets and is
the first time it is used on a Nimitz-class ship.
Basically, the waste is vacummed into a holding tank in the
stern of the ship, treated with UV lights and discharged as
bacteria-free water. (Kenny jokes that he has the “crappiest”
job in the shipyard.) Although he had been reluctant to be
interviewed or have his picture taken, Kenny lights up when
talking about the system, which was drawn up for use on USS
George H.W. Bush by fellow shipbuilder Stan Bonk. “It’s
good to work with the Navy and sell these systems, turn them
over and show them how to work these systems,” he says.
And he’s having a great time on sea trials. “It’s
been an experience,” he says. “They’ve got
so many different new systems, it’s been a learning
experience. It’s been interesting. I’ve learned
a lot, as well as I think a lot of the other guys. It’s
been fun.”
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In the VCMSD, I also run into Mark Haller,
the supplier I had met the day before. He is checking out
Tri-Tec’s actuators first-hand and loving every minute
of his first sea trials. “We came out for the commissioning,”
he says. “When you know there’s $10 million of
your equipment on a $6 billion ship and it’s sitting
right in front of you and you hear the President talk, it
was pretty emotional. … The fact that we support the
Navy – all of us at the company are passionate about
what we do. It’s pretty exciting because it serves a
bigger purpose than ourselves and the company. We’re
thrilled to be here, and we’re having a great time.”
– Jim Roberts
Shooting
Stars
It’s 9 p.m. and Gaylon Montgomery,
video producer, and I are headed for the highest, daily-manned
point of the ship, the O9 level of the island. An hour before,
we were at one of the lowest points in the ship, a shaft alley
on the eighth deck. This jaunt will be one of many transitions
made to cover the trials. According to my pedometer, we’ve
covered about five miles today while documenting a dozen or
more trials and ship activities. Now we’re headed out
into a cold, clear night to view a sight most people aren’t
able to enjoy very often.
The ship is far enough out to sea that the stars will have
no competition from civilization’s light, and we expect
the Milky Way to be a bright swath of diamonds on black velvet.
We’re not disappointed. Lights at the front of the island
paint the mast and yardarms above us with a glow like that
from the embers of a dying fire. I had seen a similar view
on USS Nimitz a number of years before and was struck
by how the mast with that background of stars looked like
a Star Wars movie prop. This time I would have the chance
to capture it photographically.
The exposures are long as it’s nearly pitch black,
the ship is moving so the stars are blurry, and the ship’s
passage through the water shakes the ship as well; so nothing
is as crisp as I’d hoped. But I think the results, if
not the view alone, are good enough to have made the climb
worthwhile. – Chris Oxley
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