Midway Magic

This summer, I spent quite a few weekends in downtown San Diego. One of the new attractions there is the USS Midway (CV-41) aircraft carrier, which is now on permanent display about a five-minute walk from the hotel where I stayed. I spent four amazing hours touring her one recent weekend. If you need some not-so-subtle reminders about what a mighty country we live in, take the tour yourself, and consider that this ship entered service in 1943 and was decommissioned over ten years ago. It’s an old piece of machinery, and yet I guarantee it’s still the most impressive thing you’ll see all week.

My stepbrother served aboard the Midway in the late seventies and early eighties, so I feel a certain special kinship with her, even though I was an Air Force flyboy and the closest I ever got to a nautical item during my military career was a bottle of Captain Morgan.

The crew’s private berthing spaces and work centers still retain many of the personalized touches given to them by thousands of men and women who lived and worked there. (If you take the tour, look for the Pink Floyd stickers on the lower bunk in the enlisted berth, among many other things.)

There are 15 aircraft displayed onboard, with at least six more coming soon.

Part of the drama of a ship this big is seeing it in context with an object you’re familiar with. San Diego makes this easy, because the Midway is moored right next to downtown. When you stand on the flight deck and your head is level with the tenth floor of nearby office buildings, it’s evident how utterly huge the thing is. And yet I bet it looked damned small when seen from a half-mile final at 140 knots. Can you say "floating postage stamp"? I'm not at all embarrased to say that I liked the Air Force's 8,000-foot runways, but I sure would have liked to get CQ'd during my military flying career. Guess I'll just have to settle for having a bunch of successful traps in the Hornet sim. Oh, well.

My hat's off to the guys who did it, and still do it, every day. You are studs of the highest order.

FMI:
Midway.org (Museum Site)
MidwaySailor.com