San Francisco Fleat Weak

[charliearon 3,024]

My favorite month of the year!  The Blue Angles are in town!  I caught a picture of one flying over! All puns intended.

 

 

[scottb613 1,188]

Hi Folks,

GO NAVY !

Regards,

Scott

[charliearon 3,024]

17 minutes ago, scottb613 said:

Hi Folks,

GO NAVY !

Regards,

Scott

+1  Navy all the way!  '68-'72

[scottb613 1,188]

Hi Folks,

85 to 93... “Submarines once submarines twice - holy jump’n” - - - about as far as I can go with the song without being censored..

😄

Regards,

Scott

Edited October 3, 2018 by scottb613

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Being a former Bay Area resident I would take the Ferry from the Napa River boat dock into San Francisco during fleet week whenever I could.  I enjoyed the Blue Angels, strolling some of the ships, and just the ambiance of a great contributor to the Bay Area economy, the Navy.  Also enjoyed visiting the fleet in San Diego during my visits there, when I was a small child I got to visit the Midway.  My father, a health physicist for the Navy would get us special passes for some of the Nuclear ships, including the Long Beach.

Living near Luke as I do today (I live on Northern Ave, so does Luke), I could enjoy the Thunderbirds in practice session and during their rare air shows, the F22 Raptor, and the F35.  Luke again is a great contributor to the economy and a former colleague and former air force staff gets his medical care there. 

The Luke air show was noted for snarling local traffic, with up to 100,000 showing up on each day of the air show.  Us locals knew the best vantage points for the air show, away from all the traffic, on the west side of the base near the zoo where the jets would buzz us at almost rooftop level.  With the opening of the Northern Parkway I have been hoping for another airshow, it is a big four lane freeway and traffic reliever bypassing Luke just to the north of the original Northern Ave.

John

[scott967 62]

Used to live in Annapolis (wife was stationed at the academy and I was at No VA so we agreed to "split the difference" on the commute and lived in Annapolis -- funny how that happens).  Any way the Blue Angels came over every June Week (which actually was in May, but whatever) and flew over our house during practices/show.

scott s.

.

 

[birdguy 3,943]

San Francisco did not always have such a good relationship with the Navy.

One of the missions my weather flight had was supporting the 6th US Army Headquarters at the Presidio of San Francisco.

After the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989 I was sent there to do weather support at the emergency operations center.  I briefed the weather each morning to the staff.

One morning a Navy captain offered the Mayor of San Francisco a ship to house displaced families.  It was the US Peleliu, an amphibious assault ship ( actually a carrier) docked in Alameda.  He said they had Navy nurses and female personnel to assist the families.

The mayor got several busses and they collected all the homeless from skid row and transported them to Alameda.  The Navy was furious ad sent the busses back.  The next day the Peleliu got orders to sail.

When I arrived at the Presidio there were no more quarters available for senior NCOs so I got rental car and was put up at The Travelodge at Fisherman's Wharf.  The things one has to do for his country sometimes.  That afternoon after returning from the Presidio I saw the Peleliu steaming down the bay toward the Golden Gate Bridge from the window in my room.  I understand it took a while before the Navy's relations with San Francisco returned to normal.

The Peleliu was decommissioned in 2015.  Sometime in the 90s the 6th US Army moved to Texas (I think) and the Presidio became a national park. 

Noel

[John_Cillis 2,406]

2 hours ago, birdguy said:

San Francisco did not always have such a good relationship with the Navy.

One of the missions my weather flight had was supporting the 6th US Army Headquarters at the Presidio of San Francisco.

After the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989 I was sent there to do weather support at the emergency operations center.  I briefed the weather each morning to the staff.

One morning a Navy captain offered the Mayor of San Francisco a ship to house displaced families.  It was the US Peleliu, an amphibious assault ship ( actually a carrier) docked in Alameda.  He said they had Navy nurses and female personnel to assist the families.

The mayor got several busses and they collected all the homeless from skid row and transported them to Alameda.  The Navy was furious ad sent the busses back.  The next day the Peleliu got orders to sail.

When I arrived at the Presidio there were no more quarters available for senior NCOs so I got rental car and was put up at The Travelodge at Fisherman's Wharf.  The things one has to do for his country sometimes.  That afternoon after returning from the Presidio I saw the Peleliu steaming down the bay toward the Golden Gate Bridge from the window in my room.  I understand it took a while before the Navy's relations with San Francisco returned to normal.

The Peleliu was decommissioned in 2015.  Sometime in the 90s the 6th US Army moved to Texas (I think) and the Presidio became a national park. 

Noel

Thanks for sharing this piece of history.  I lived in the North Bay and felt the Loma Prieta earthquake strongly, I had just returned from a trip to Tahoe earlier that afternoon, just in time for the earthquake.  The interesting part of the quake is we lost the TV signal some seconds before the shockwaves reached the North Bay, so I almost yelled at my nephews to quit playing with the TV when the rocking chair (of all things that day, I had to be in a rocking chair) started rocking on its own. 

By the time the shockwaves reached the North Bay, they had slowed and lessened a bit in strength, but that only prolonged the shaking, it was more than a minute before the shaking stopped.  I went outside, earthquakes tend to empty homes in an instant, looking at our swaying planters and phone poles.  My father, inbound on Highway 29, thankfully over the Bay Bridges on home from work, felt the quake in his car and he said he had to maintain control of the car. 

Yes, there was a lot of damage, but it was not like a Tornado where everything is flattened.  Except for the collapsed bridges most of it could not be seen unless you looked close.  Our foundation wall had an inch wide crack in it, all the way around the circumference of the house, but the house was bolted to the foundation and the damage was more cosmetic than anything else.  One bookcase almost toppled, we subsequently bolted it to the wall to protect in a future quake, and the home did have to go thru one where the bolts held some eleven years later.

My best friend was at a home he was working on and said the quake emptied the backyard swimming pool in seconds.  For months after whenever I sat at an off kilter table that rocked, I would feel a moment of dizziness and anxiety.  Russia actually sent people to help us, not mentioned, they sent psychologists to help people learn to cope with the aftermath of living thru an earthquake, where they have had much experience.

The Loma Prieta quake will always be part of my life in the Bay Area when I lived there, from the juxtaposition of the first Bay Bridge World series to the Cypress freeway, where I drove a week before the quake, to the leaning pieces of tower coined by the news media, radio/tv towers that fell off kilter.  The Quake brought us together, and came at a time when the world was watching us.  I don't live in California anymore but if I did, I would call the Bay Area with San Francisco at its center home again, after all San Francisco is the home of Starfleet!

John

[birdguy 3,943]

When I was out there I had most of my afternoons off.  After the morning briefing there was little else for me to do except supervise the other forecasters.

The helicopters were staged out of Hamilton Field.  It had long since been abandoned by the Air Force but there was a small Coast Guard detachment there.  We had our weather observers for the Army helicopters there.

One afternoon I took a helicopter ride to Hamilton to check on the observers.  On the way back we flew over Candlestick Park just as the first ball game after the quake was starting again.  Then the pilot turned west toward the ocean and flew up the coast.  We split the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge just before landing back at the presidio.  (My aviation qualifier for the reply)

It had been a long time since Crissy Field had seen any air traffic.

In addition to the Bay Bridge the homes in the Marina District suffered quite a bit of damage too.  The Marina is built on old landfill over the bay and it suffered 'liquification' and intensified the effects.

Noel

[John_Cillis 2,406]

On 10/7/2018 at 12:35 PM, birdguy said:

When I was out there I had most of my afternoons off.  After the morning briefing there was little else for me to do except supervise the other forecasters.

The helicopters were staged out of Hamilton Field.  It had long since been abandoned by the Air Force but there was a small Coast Guard detachment there.  We had our weather observers for the Army helicopters there.

One afternoon I took a helicopter ride to Hamilton to check on the observers.  On the way back we flew over Candlestick Park just as the first ball game after the quake was starting again.  Then the pilot turned west toward the ocean and flew up the coast.  We split the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge just before landing back at the presidio.  (My aviation qualifier for the reply)

It had been a long time since Crissy Field had seen any air traffic.

In addition to the Bay Bridge the homes in the Marina District suffered quite a bit of damage too.  The Marina is built on old landfill over the bay and it suffered 'liquification' and intensified the effects.

Noel

I remember the problems with the homes in the Marina District and the fires.  In Napa damage was minimal, the 2014 Napa quake was the worst in Napa, preceded by the 2000 Napa quake which hit my Mom pretty hard and trashed the inside of her house.  That sealed her decision to move to Arizona.  Branches of the Hayward fault extend into the Southern and Western parts of Napa county.  Poor Napa has had its share of disasters, even a few small Tornadoes, one of which I was in.  The 1981 and 2017 fires, the 86 and later floods, hurricane force winds a few times and earthquakes.  Thru it all the Napa airport has made it thru most of the disasters, except for the near loss of their tower from the 2014 earthquake.  It is situated far enough from the forests and river to escape fires and flooding.  It was a military airport created during WWII then given to the county, where it has served as a profitable airport, seeing a lot of business jet traffic up to the 737NG and an occasional visit from a chartered MD80.  It houses many executive jets, especially during events like the recently completed PGA tour event, the Safeway open.  We have seen the likes of Tom Watson, Johnny Miller, Jack Nicklaus, and other golf greats golf there during PGA tour and senior events while I lived there.  And copters galore would fill the skies filming the event.  During the 81 fire which I saw unfold before my eyes, the saviors then were the air tankers which would buzz my house inbound from Santa Rosa to protect Silverado country club where the tour visits.  That fire had the potential to destroy many homes and in the end we lost 60+ million dollar homes back then, sadly the 2017 fire did destroy more Napa homes and was the costliest fire in California history.

John