Visiting the USS Midway

[Toasted_Rofls]

WARNING: TONS OF PICTURES, OVER 130!

Allright, I live in San Diego, which means I have access to one of the most amazing (and relevant to this forum) museums around, the USS Midway, and aircraft carrier which I am currently assuming will be the top tier American carrier in game, or at least very close to being top tier. I visited there recently, and I brought my camera. What resulted was a huge number of pictures, and an amazing experience overall. I have alot of pictures to post, as I said before, so for historical data, I refer you to Wikipedia.

The USS Midway construction started during World War II, but the ship was not completed in time to participate.

Here is a run down on the photos, because I do not want to type a huge amount, I will give a basic overview of what you need to know.

• I am a terrible photographer with an average camera, forgive me for bad pictures
  
• There are numerous mannequins onboard, and some 2D people things. If you see someone in a non-digital uniform, it's not a real person.
  
• I got a ton of photos of aircraft, just as many as the ship. I hope no one minds.
  
• The bridge was closed off at the time, so I could not visit it nor the upper portion of the tower. I may go back at a later date, however, and I will get the pictures then.

Without further ado, here we go. If you have any questions, I will try to answer them to the best of my ability.

Next post will have more photos

[billy1928]

Nice

 

I cant wait to see the USS-Intrepid along with the USS-Growler

[Toasted_Rofls]

More photos

Even more photos later

[ForcestormX]

Good stuff.

[grimzod]

Great pics.  Were you able to see any engineering spaces?

[Crag_r]

Great pictures! but maybe you could have used a spoiler to make it slightly easier to scroll though...

[RMS_Gigantic]

Tier X US carrier in WoWs!

[Goldeneye54]

Nice pics!

[USMarine]

Very nice

[Toasted_Rofls]

USMarine, on 29 August 2012 - 04:12 AM, said:

Very nice

Thanks. Posting these things is a pain in the butt, but I will try to get all of them up as soon as I can.

[JeeWeeJ]

Nice photo's, thanks for sharing!

[Toasted_Rofls]

Well, this is incredibly delayed, but I've decided to finish what I started so long ago and proceeded to forget about. I hope this thread is still in the correct place on the forums...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Even more photos in my next post probably. I'm going to attempt to get all of them up at once this time.

[Toasted_Rofls]

Moar fotos, more engine stuff:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Khovax]

My old man served on the Midway... I think it was his first ship he served on

[Toasted_Rofls]

WOW, MORE PHOTOS, WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED?!?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next post will discuss the "second half" of the museum, and of course, we contain moar pictures. The photos will continue to be shown until morale improves.

[Toasted_Rofls]

Khovax, on 30 July 2013 - 03:14 AM, said:

My old man served on the Midway... I think it was his first ship he served on

The Midway stuck around for some time in active duty, being put to sea 1945 and leaving the Navy in 1992. I bet countless people have been touched by it in some way. It's quite the ship, when you see it in person and just think about it, it's quite amazing. Did your dad ever talk about his time on it? It would be interesting to hear, for sure.

[PotatoPeeler]

O.o I don't remember there being a Blue Angels flight suit on there before

[madmanthan21]

Good stuff, +1s all round

also, next time, you might wanna put the pictures inside spoilers

[Khovax]

Toasted_Rofls, on 30 July 2013 - 03:21 AM, said:

The Midway stuck around for some time in active duty, being put to sea 1945 and leaving the Navy in 1992. I bet countless people have been touched by it in some way. It's quite the ship, when you see it in person and just think about it, it's quite amazing. Did your dad ever talk about his time on it? It would be interesting to hear, for sure.

we were talking about it someday, he said that  when the ship neared the end of its service it had some real stability issues from the angled flight deck and all the stuff they added to it for jets.
I guess they tried to fix it by adding big pontoons to the hull but it only made it worst.

[Toasted_Rofls]

madmanthan21, on 30 July 2013 - 07:27 AM, said:

Good stuff, +1s all round
also, next time, you might wanna put the pictures inside spoilers

Well I figured since this is a picture thread, I'm not going to make people click on spoiler buttons to look at them. The purpose of this thread is pictures first and foremost, so if that gets in the way of other things, that's the price that must be payed.

Khovax, on 30 July 2013 - 11:15 AM, said:

we were talking about it someday, he said that when the ship neared the end of its service it had some real stability issues from the angled flight deck and all the stuff they added to it for jets.
I guess they tried to fix it by adding big pontoons to the hull but it only made it worst.

Yeah, there's only so much modernization you can do to a ship that was designed to fight in World War II, and nearly did. With that in mind, it's even more impressive how long the Midway was in active service.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The "Second Museum"
Midway, as I am sure you are all aware, is an aircraft carrier. That means it deployed a whole multitude of airplanes and helicopters during its long service life, from WWII era prop-fighters up to modern day advanced combat jets, and helicopters of all sorts, from the very first military helos to the latest models. The flight deck of the Midway is littered with historical aircraft from all eras, and probably has enough to constitute it's own aviation museum, hence my title of it being a "Second Museum". If you love planes, and could care less about naval matters, the Midway is still the museum for you.

As you step onto the flight deck, you are greeted with the sight of a sea of different aircraft:



Almost all of these aircraft have informative signs about them, so even if you are an aircraft noob and know little about them (like myself), you can still learn new things!



You can get extremely close to the aircraft, and even go into some of the helicopters. Here we have a picture of a gatling gun gun exposed for viewing. It's awesome.



Obviously these are inert training dummies, but that doesn't make them less cool. One of the great things about the Midway is most of the aircraft have mock-armaments mounted.



Here is a view of Coronado Bridge from the flight deck of the Midway. You get some amazing views from it, trust me.



The Midway is popular for a reason!



These are even better to look at in person. You should go to the Midway. Do it. Do it as soon as you can.



This dutiful guard never moved once the entire time I was there.



The variety of planes they have is staggering, it's not just a bunch of F-14's, not that that would be a bad thing.



Remember what I said about how they load the planes down with inert munitions and weapons to awesome effect? Here it is again:



My next post will have even more aircraft pictures. You have been warned!

[Toasted_Rofls]

Yeah, more airplane pictures!

 

These cutaways are really awesome, and a number of aircraft feature them.

 

 

If you play World Of Tanks, you know anything named "Panther" is probably bad, but that's in the case of tanks only I think. Look at the paint on this guy! How could something that looks like this be bad?

 

 

Despite the gorgeous paint job, this beauty means business.

 

 

I'm not sure exactly what plane this is, but I do know it reminds me a little of a goblin shark.

 

 

America loves to bolt M2 Browning machine guns to everything it can, but there is a good reason for that! Reliable, powerful, practical, affordable, it's an excellent weapon and it's still being used even today because of this.

 

 

For maximum Micheal Bay approved action, I present you this well equipped wing:

 

 

Jets from all time periods of usage are here:

 

 

Another cool thing about the Midway is that it's located in San Diego harbor, a major Navy operations center. That means we get to see cool things like this fly by from the flight deck:

 

 

Folding wings are so cool.

 

 

One of the earliest military helicopter designs ever used in combat:

 

 

More pictures in the next post!

[Toasted_Rofls]

Here we go, part three of the flight deck. I'll only provide captions occasionally from this point on, but if you have any questions, I'll try to answer them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is the Super Cobra from before, once more.

 

 

 

 

 

This is not actually a Blackhawk, this is it's Navy twin, the Seahawk. You'd be forgiven for mixing them up though, at least by me.

 

 

More pictures to come!

[Toasted_Rofls]

Part IV, the flood continues!

 

 

 

Another cutaway exhibit, or in this case, they left the service panels off for our benefit.

 

 

 

 

This former USN member is explaining the launch system on the Midway. One of the best reasons to come here is to hear stories from these guys.

 

 

View from inside a helicopter. Yes, you can go inside some of them!

 

 

 

 

[Toasted_Rofls]

 

 

 

 

 

 

San Diego International airport is right next door:

 

 

 

If you go to San Diego to see this carrier, you will end up seeing other carriers as well, because, well, it's San Diego harbor.

 

 

As I said before, the flight deck offers truly excellent shots and great views.

 

[Toasted_Rofls]

Going to take a break after these next ten photos. Anyways, in this picture, we have what I believe are Navy cadets:

 

 

 

A flight deck control station:

 

 

 

 

 

A painting aboard the ship: