This is just a fraction of the intense photos and videos captured by U.S. Navy personnel, 12-17 July 2020.
INFERNO
U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer Second Class Austin Haist, 12JUL2020.
On the morning of 12JUL2020, and after two years of extensive retrofitting, USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6) became a steel inferno while moored pier side at Naval Base San Diego, California.
Into the steel inferno. USN photo by Petty Officer Third Class Jason Waite, 14JUL2020.
Video by Petty Officer Third Class Christina Ross, 1st day of fire. At the end of the video, night time, it’s clear that flames are leaping from inside the island superstructure:
USN photo by Lieutenant John J. Mike, 12JUL2020.
RESPONSE
USN photo by Petty Officer First Class Jason Kofonow, 12JUL2020.
USN photo by Petty Officer First Class Jason Kofonow, 12JUL2020.
USN photo by Petty Officer Second Class Nall Morgan, 13JUL2020.
Video via Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet, 2nd day of fire:
USN photo by Petty Officer Second Class Nall Morgan, 13JUL2020.
AIR TANKS & MASKS, etc
USN photo by Petty Officer First Class Julio Rivera, 16JUL2020.
USN photo by Petty Officer Second Class Natalie Byers, 15JUL2020.
USN photo by Petty Officer Second Class Natalie Byers, 15JUL2020.
Barrels of firefighting foam. USN photo by Petty Officer Second Class Austin Haist, 12JUL2020.
USN photo by Petty Officer Second Class Jessica Paulauskas, 14JUL2020.
BOATS & HELICOPTERS
USN photo by Petty Officer First Class Jason Kofonow, 13JUL2020.
Video from day 2, boats and helicopters focus on the superstructure:
USN photo by Petty Officer Second Class Austin Haist, 12JUL2020.
In this photo, notice that the forward mast is still standing.
Video, 3rd day, fire and smoke are no longer visible on the outside, but the external damage is obvious:
On 14JUL2020, with the fire(s) contained the boats, and MH-60S Knighthawk helicopters, continued applying water to cool down the exterior of the amphibious assault ship.
USN photo by Petty Officer First Class Patrick W. Menah Junior, 13JUL2020.
In these photos you can see the forward mast has collapsed.
USN photo by Petty Officer Third Class Mar’Queon A. D. Tramble, 13JUL2020.
USN photo by Petty Officer First Class Benjamin K. Kittleson, 14JUL2020.
The 266th played the bad guy (Opposition Force, OpFor) trying to shoot down Idaho’s A-10Cs.
This is supposed to simulate the 1S91 SURN radar for the 2K12 Kub (NATO code name SA-6 Gainful) missile system. It’s made mainly of steel and aluminum.
The 266th also used a real radar to simulate enemy radar signals.
News reports said the fire was inside the ship, for an indication of how big the fire was this pic (by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Austin Haist) clearly shows flames jetting from the island superstructure.
On the morning of 12JUL2020 a fire broke out inside amphibious assault ship USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6) while it was moored pier side at Naval Base San Diego. LHD 6 had been in San Diego, California, since 2018 for a major refit.
USN photo by Mass Communication Specialist First Class Kory Alsberry, 14JUL2020.
Flight crews with Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron (HSC) 3 used their MH-60S Knighthawks to work around the clock as an airborne bucket brigade, trying to contain the fire.
USN photo by Petty Officer Third Class Christina Ross, 13JUL2020.
USN photo by Lieutenant Joseph Kendrick, 13JUL2020.
USN photo by Lieutenant Joseph Kendrick, 13JUL2020.
Video by Petty Officer 1st Class Benjamin Kittleson, 13JUL2020:
USN photo by Petty Officer Second Class Patrick W. Menah Junior, 13JUL2020.
Video by Lieutenant Joseph Pfaff, 13JUL2020:
Video by Petty Officer 3rd Class Kevin Leitner, 13JUL2020:
While boats and groundcrews focused on shooting water to the inside of the ship, the Knighthawks focused most of their drops on the burning island superstructure. Video by Petty Officer 2nd Class Jasen MorenoGarcia:
USN photo by Petty Officer Second Class Patrick W. Menah Junior, 14JUL2020.
USN photo by Petty Officer Second Class Patrick W. Menah Junior, 14JUL2020.
Night video, by Seaman Zachary Pearson, of Knighthawk water drop on deck surrounding the island superstructure, 15 July:
USN photo by Petty Officer Third Class Garrett LaBarge, 14JUL2020.
USN photo by Mass Communication Specialist First Class Julio Rivera, 15JUL2020.
USN photo by Mass Communication Specialist First Class Julio Rivera, 15JUL2020.
On 16 July, firecrews were evacuated from LHD 6 due the ship listing. The list is blamed on all the water pumped into the ship.
“They were great birds to fly. You could land them anywhere, in any type of environment; they were great for what we were using them for here.”-Captain Tyler Smith, Bravo Company commander, 1st Bn, 5th Avn Reg
The U.S. Army’s 1st Battalion, 5th Aviation Regiment OH-58C Kiowas fly over Fort Polk, Louisiana, for the last time, 09JUL2020. The Kiowa helicopters are being replaced with UH-72 Lakotas.
Farewell water salute.
The U.S. Army’s oldest operational aircraft is a Kiowa, tail # O-16696, now to become a static display ‘gate guard’ at Fork Polk. Three of the Fort Polk Kiowas will be cannibalized for spare parts while the other four retiring Kiowas will be used by sheriff departments in Texas, Alabama, Georgia and Florida.
The Kiowa family of helicopters have been used by the U.S. Army since 1969. Ultimately, 2-thousand-2-hundred different versions of the Kiowa would be built between 1966 and 1989. The U.S. Army’s last operational ‘C’ Kiowas are based at Fort Irwin (National Training Center), California, but will also be retired soon.
On 23 June 2020, perhaps too much self-restricting pandemic lockdown (I say “self-restricting” as most of us in Eastern Idaho are not adhering to CoViD-19 lockdown, and even the local Sheriff departments refuse to enforce such things) forced me to hit the road for a scenic road-trip from Chubbuck to Bear Lake, Idaho, in my 2010 Dodge Challenger SRT-8. I was accompanied by one of my daughters, Aryssa May Hutchins (who took 90% of the photos), and Andrew ‘Bulletproof Family Photos’ Erickson.
Aryssa says there’s plenty of room in the backseat.
A lot has changed since then; my children all became adults and moved away to the evil metro-ville called Boise, my house was paid-off the same year I lost my Mail Handler job at the U.S. Postal Service’s Gateway Station (I tried reapplying online as a Clerk but got an instant message saying I wasn’t ‘qualified’ to apply for that position) and apparently my age is keeping me from getting hired by any of the local employers I’ve applied at thus forcing me to live off my children’s ‘inheritance’ (ha, fortunately they’re all financially better-off than I was at their ages), my parents died which in turn forced me to realize I wasn’t getting any younger and I had not fulfilled one of my personal promises to acquire a muscle car (having sold-off my muscle car projects in the early 1980s due to the skyrocketing costs of becoming a spouse and parent) thus providence led me to a one-of-a kind (for Eastern Idaho) second-hand Dodge Challenger SRT-8 with 6-speed manual transmission and low mileage. The original owner was forced to sell due to a back surgery that left her unable to engage the clutch pedal without pain. Ironically she bought the Challenger brand new from the Dodge dealer in Pocatello for the same reasons I wanted to buy it; loss of relatives reminding her that she was not getting any younger, and reminiscing about her young adult days driving muscle cars in the 1970s (yes, many women owned and drove their own muscle cars back in the days when feminists were burning their bras for ‘equality’).
Cache National Forest
Face masks are mandatory!
U.S. National Forest Service’s Minnetonka Cave (aka Caverns), be careful, the steps and handrails in the cavern are wet and slick as ice. Also, you better be in shape, there’s a lot of steep climbing and wearing the face-masks makes you feel like you’re going to suffocate.
Minnetonka supposedly means Falling Water, or Great Water. There is a lot of water coming down inside the cave, through earthquake fault lines that run through the cave ceiling.
The tour guide tried to convince me that I was looking at Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.
Statue of Liberty?
Bring your neon-black light flash light, these rock are radioactive (high phosphorus content)!
They call it Stairway to Heaven, I calls it Stairway OF Hell!
Can you see the petrified Hypno-Toad?
Some bats were fluttering around, the tour guide seemed concerned.
I survived, but wait, this isn’t where I parked the car!
I always regret bringing a jacket, I end up soaked with sweat. The cave is a constant 40 degrees Fahrenheit (4.4 Celsius), but you wouldn’t know it because you overheat climbing up and down the very steep stairs.
There appears to be some faces in the rock-face of this outcrop above us.
Rock spirits of Minnetonka!
We hadn’t planned on going to Bear Lake but its bright blue water beckoned us as we came down off the mountain. We’re now suffering with solar induced radiation poisoning (sunburn), in other words we got fried.
“I gotta rock!”
Arriving at the North Beach of Bear Lake we discovered it was packed. After paying the Idaho State Parks $5 parking fee at the gate on the west entrance, I drove all the way to the east end to find a parking spot. Being Idahoans we counted license plates, one or two vehicles with Idaho plates, at least three with Oregon plates, at least 90% of the vehicles had Utah plates, I facetiously hope we don’t get sick with all those domestic foreigners around. Most of the beach area was wall-to-wall people and despite ‘the age of CoViD-19’ nobody was wearing masks or ‘social distancing’, but what we should have done was protect ourselves from the Sun.
Gulliver goes renegade on the tiny Lilliputians!
Bear Lake’s North Beach is shallow, you can walk out for a while with the water getting no higher than your mid-thigh. Some spots are soft sand while other areas are rocky.
Speaking of getting fried, we got hungry and headed back to a row of locally run tourist shops in the tiny town of Saint Charles, including North Beach Burgers that sells ‘gourmet’ burgers and shakes. I got the elk meat burger, Andrew got the bacon-black & blue-burger, Aryssa got the standard bacon cheeseburger, and we split a huckleberry shake.
Goes off every hour.
On the way back to Chubbuck we stopped in Soda Springs to refuel the car (it had just a little more than half a tank when we started the road-trip), and with The Fates on our side, hit the ‘captive’ (human-made) Geyser as it went off.
In the past I’ve seen people collecting this sulfur rich water for drinking purposes!
East Side
West Side
Close-up of wooden railing on the West Side of the geyser. Decades of mineralized overspray is petrifying the fence.
Soda Springs also claims to have Idaho’s oldest pharmacy, Eastman Drug, where we found this old 1950s era Mack firetruck.
Interstate-15 has a maximum passenger vehicle speed of 80 miles per hour (128 kilometers per hour) within Idaho, but once you take the Soda Springs turnoff the state highway speed is maxed at 65 mph (104 kph) with lots of drops to 35 and even 25 mph (56-40 kph) going through the many small towns along the way. My 425 horsepower 6.1 Liter (372 cubic inches) hemi V8 managed to average 23 miles per gallon, something my early 1970s muscle car projects (with larger 6.2 L/383 ci and 7.2 L/440 ci motors pumping out less stock-factory horsepower) would be hard pressed to achieve even with the then 55 mph (88 kph) max speed limit on interstates, back then.
Photo of my dad with my Canadian built 1971 Plymouth Satellite Sebring Plus, 383 ci V8 with 3-speed automatic transmission, circa 1983-84.
Don’t let CoViD-19 get you down, get out and drive!
Florida Army National Guard photo by Sergeant Spencer Rhodes, 13MAY2020.
Florida Air National Guard 125th FW’s F-15Cs did battle with CoViD-19 over the Orange County Convention Center’s Pandemic testing operations, 13MAY2020.
U.S. Air Force photo by Erica Campbell, 14MAY2020.
F-15s from 96th Test Wing flew over Florida on 14MAY2020.
U.S. Marine Corps photo by Corporal Carley Vedro, 17OCT2019.
Checking for booby-traps planted near an abandoned AH-1W Super Cobra.
USMC photo by Corporal Carley Vedro, 17OCT2019.
Aircraft recovery training at Twentynine Palms, California, 17OCT2019.
USMC photo by Corporal Carley Vedro, 17OCT2019.
Interesting, this recovery training took place in October 2019, yet all the Marines in this pic are wearing N95 masks! The information that came with these pics did not explain why they are wearing N95 masks. N95 masks are not just for medical use, they are also used in various industries for protection against microscopic particles.
USMC photo by Corporal Koby I. Saunders, 09MAY2018.
Recovery ops, Twenty Nine Palms, May 2018.
USMC photo by Corporal Koby I. Saunders, 09MAY2018.
USMC photo by Corporal Koby I. Saunders, 09MAY2018.
USMC photo by Corporal Koby I. Saunders, 09MAY2018.
USMC photo by Corporal Koby I. Saunders, 09MAY2018.
USMC photo by Staff Sergeant Kowshon Ye, 07NOV2017.
Aircraft salvage and recovery/refueling training at Twentynine Palms, 07NOV2017.
Video, Marine Wing Support Squadron (MWSS) 373 explains Viper recovery training during Integrated Training eXercise 3-17:
The Super Cobra in this video was the subject of a Tactical Recovery of Aircraft and Personnel mission (TRAP mission) in Helmand Province, Afghanistan in June 2011. The AH-1W had one of its two turbines quit working and a new engine was installed. The video is of the start-up and take-off after the new turbine was installed:
Most U.S. Marine AH-1W Super Cobras were ‘retired’ by the end of 2019, being resurrected as upgraded AH-1Z Vipers.
U.S. Army ‘Rotary Wing Assets’, including Apaches, aboard USS Lewis B. Puller (the first of its kind mobile helicopter base-ship) somewhere in the Persian Gulf, 15APR2020.
The 101st Combat Aviation Brigade, at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, is deploying to Europe to take part in anti-Russia operation Atlantic Resolve. Video, AH-64 Apache live fire, 01MAY2020, Fort Campbell Kentucky:
Also deploying from Fort Campbell, the 2nd Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment took-off for South Korea. It is considered a routine ‘rotational’ deployment.
Ignoring CoViD-19 ‘social distancing’ and mask wearing advise, hundreds of family members turned out to say goodbye to Utah Army National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 211th Aviation Regiment, as it deployed for a year long combat mission in Afghanistan.
National Guard personnel conduct Forward Arming and Refueling Point (FARP) training at McEntire Joint National Guard Base, South Carolina, 13MAY2020.
Video, 18 AH-64s of the 1-3rd Attack Reconnaissance Battalion, 12th Combat Aviation Brigade fly over Bavaria, Germany, 19MAY2020:
12th Combat Aviation Brigade video explainer (with happy background music); how the AH-64D Apache Longbow can kill you:
On 23JAN2020, the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and Kratos Defense & Security Solutions (Kratos) conducted a successful 4th flight of the XQ-58A low-cost, long-range attack ‘drone’ (Low Cost Attritable Aircraft Technology), over the U.S. Army’s Yuma Proving Grounds (YPG) in Arizona.
Length 9.14m, wingspan 8.2m, dry weight 1134kg, maximum take-off weight 2722kg. Internal bomb-bay with two GBU-39 bombs, wings will have hard points for weapons, maximum payload of 544kg. Turbofan engine producing 2000lb thrust.
“The Valkyrie is a remarkable accomplishment requiring a highly collaborative approach to meet the program’s performance and cost objectives, all while achieving first flight in 30 months.”-Doug Szczublewski, AFRL, November 2019
Apparently one of the innovations of the XQ-58A team is the creation of an 11-feet long air intake duct made with resins.
Kratos representatives say the XQ-58A and its launcher can fit inside a standard Conex shipping container. (USAF finds new use for Conex: NEGATIVE PRESSURE FLYING HOSPITALS?)
Short silent video from the first flight, 05MAR2019, over YPG:
In October 2019 the new Valkyrie crashed while landing, high-speed winds and failure of the ‘recovery system’ being blamed. Supposedly it does not need a paved runway to land on (using parachutes and airbags), and can conduct a wide-range of missions (surveillance, reconnaissance and long-range combat) at far less the cost of current unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV, aka drones).
U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, 09DEC2020. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sergeant Joshua King.
USAF video, from December 2020, admitting that the XQ-58A was a failure:
During the 09DEC2020 test, the F-35 Lightning-2, and an F-22 Raptor, were supposed to be able to ‘communicate’ with their unmanned wingman, the XQ-58A. It didn’t work. Photo via Air Force Magazine.
In July 2021, the ‘advanced’ XQ-58 Valkyrie suddenly became a museum piece in the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. USAF photo by Ty Greenlees.
“I heard about the flooding about 30-minutes after the first dam collapsed. I received a call from my command around 11pm last night to come in right away and have been working since.”-Private First Class Lydia Humphrey, 1073rd Maintenance Company, Michigan Army National Guard
In northern Michigan the Edenville and Sanford Dams failed between 19-20 May 2020, but the state’s National Guard was already activated for the CoViD-19 lock-downs, so response time was fast. 130 of the 1-thousand activated Guard personnel were diverted to flood response.
Officials also said evacuation warnings had been heeded by most residents so there wasn’t much rescuing going on.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Detroit District, is now figuring out how to prevent more dam failures in Midland and Gladwin counties, due to severe weather.
Back in April 2020, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported that The Great Lakes were at record water levels and that significant erosion and flooding was ongoing.
Also deploying from Fort Campbell, the 2nd Squadron, 17th Cavalry Regiment took-off for South Korea. It is considered a routine ‘rotational’ deployment.
