Thursday AM, October 10, 2019, Intrepid Museum, NYC
Intrepid Sea, Air, & Space Museum
The museum is an American military and maritime history museum with a collection of museum ships in New York City. It is located at Pier 86 at 46th Street in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood on the West Side of Manhattan. The museum showcases the aircraft carrier USS Intrepid, the cruise missile submarine USS Growler, a Concorde SST, a Lockheed A-12 supersonic reconnaissance plane, and the Space Shuttle Enterprise. On the lower deck there is also a reproduction of a WWI biplane.
We saw the sunshine for the first time in days so we quickly took some pictures from our boat deck.
Since Diane and I did not have an excursion until this evening we decided to walk to the next-door pier and spend some time at the Intrepid Museum.
Although not a Navy plane, the U-2 is displayed on the carrier deck.
This retired Concord was a commercial passenger plane, displayed on the adjoining carrier dock.
This model of the Intrepid was assembled using a quarter million Lego blocks!
Diane on the carrier bridge. Make a great Captain!
U-2 up close. We had audio tour devices to hear details of most equipment on display.
Larry had to be close to a helicopter in his past.
The hanger deck is huge!
Had to see it up front and close to appreciate how large these are!
USS Growler (SSG-577) was an early attempt by the U.S. Navy to field a cruise missile submarine that would provide a nuclear deterrent using its second series of cruise missiles. Built to deliver the Regulus I cruise missile, Growler was the second and final submarine of the Grayback class, fourth ship of the United States Navy to be named after the growler. Since Regulus I and Regulus II programs had problems, Growler and Grayback were the only two submarines built in this class as instead, the U.S. Navy veered its nuclear deterrence efforts into submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs)—the Polaris missile program.
What makes Growler and her sister unusual was her nuclear armament, deployed on a conventional (non-nuclear powered) diesel-electric submarine (had to surface to charge their batteries). Her mission was to provide nuclear deterrent capability off the Pacific Coast of the Soviet Union during peak years of the Cold War, from 1958 to 1964.
The submarine only carried four nuclear missiles and had to surface to load and fire missiles. The 87 sailors thought if they had to fire a missile, they could be found and destroyed without getting off their first missile. Pure dedication!
After being in the carrier hanger deck, these are extremely cramped quarters.
We only scratched the surface of this museum. We could have spent 2-3 days instead of hours and still not seen it all.
So now we have to visit NYC again! The males in Judie's family have all been Navy so it is just a requirement. They all looked pretty unsure about this old Army guy but 40 years later I guess it's ok. Have a safe trip.
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