This thread is a spin-off of...
New York City!!! (more pics, less words)




Of the 10 days in NYC, Friday the 13th (of April) was totally *my* day, and probably the first time in my life I walked an estimated 20 miles (~32 km) in a single day!...




The morning started off chilly, but began warming up by noon (wife would regret dressing in layers and not bringing shorts)...




It was also rare for us to hit a major attraction on the correct day of the itinerary, having to juggle so many other things due to weather (brutal winter this year, unusually cool temps for April).

Our City Pass (a group of attractions at a discounted price) included the USS Intrepid, USS Growler and Enterprise Space Shuttle pavilion, but not the Concorde tour (crap, I didn't see the cockpit PM made reference to).

We arrived 20 min. before opening and made a beeline for the Growler, as we had read that the line backs up quickly. We were the first ones on the submarine. Approaching the entrance was interesting, you first had to step over while bending down to go through a wooden hatch-like opening before walking onto the sub, to make sure you fit. It was slightly challenging with our backpacks, even being smaller ones.

"The USS Growler (SSG-577) was an early attempt by the U.S. Navy to field a cruise missile submarine which would provide a nuclear deterrent using its second series of cruise missiles."

"What makes Growler and her sister unusual was her nuclear armament, deployed on a conventional (non-nuclear powered) diesel-electric submarine. 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. She became obsolete with the deployment of nuclear-powered submarines equipped with ballistic missiles."

USS Growler (SSG-577)

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Pics are mostly self-explanatory, but I'll post a few comments anyway.

There were two guides in the sub (control room and aft torpedo room), both having served in the Navy but were not submariners. They explained the purpose of each area and how some of the equipment functioned.


You enter the sub by walking through the "Missile Hanger" (didn't look like a hanger at all, crammed with control cabinets), then down a ladder behind the forward torpedo room...









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There were at least a couple of these galley areas...



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IIRC, this was in the sonar area...




...and radio room...



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I was there in 2010 and I loved every minute of it. I was struck by how tiny the cockpit was for the Concorde!! I guess people really were just tinier back then!

Just wanted to say...if I get anything wrong in these posts, please speak up.

Heck, I had no idea some subs had aft torpedos (my books are more modern subs).

And I always thought that just about all submarines have (and have always had) aft torpedo tubes. Well, maybe not the old Hunley.

Next we walked to the Space Shuttle Pavilion featuring the Enterprise, which was a test vehicle and never launched into space...




Upon entering, like many other NYC tourist attractions, they want to take your souvenir pic with a backdrop...



Now, I've got no problem with this in general, as no one was ever pushy about it. It was only irritating at the Empire State Building nighttime viewing, as they were holding up the line to take pics. They needed to have an express lane to bypass it.

It was pretty awesome walking into the main exhibit area, under the wing to the front platform...






The area has various displays like this one...

we were there a couple of years ago, kids had fun walking around inside.

thought the Lego scale model was pretty cool

Yeah, the Lego ship is really cool (some info coming)!

Nice! My idea of a vacation ceased including anything remotely comparable to walking 20 miles in a day, quite some time ago.



Mark, on your original pic, can you zoom in on those orange name plates and read the model numbers?

"USS Intrepid (CV/CVA/CVS-11), also known as The Fighting "I", is one of 24 Essex-class aircraft carriers built during World War II for the United States Navy. She is the fourth US Navy ship to bear the name. Commissioned in August 1943, Intrepid participated in several campaigns in the Pacific Theater of Operations, most notably the Battle of Leyte Gulf. Decommissioned shortly after the end of the war, she was modernized and recommissioned in the early 1950s as an attack carrier (CVA), and then eventually became an antisubmarine carrier (CVS). In her second career, she served mainly in the Atlantic, but also participated in the Vietnam War. Her notable achievements include being the recovery ship for a Mercury and a Gemini space mission. Because of her prominent role in battle, she was nicknamed "the Fighting I", while her frequent bad luck and time spent in dry dock for repairs—she was torpedoed once and hit by four separate Japanese kamikaze aircraft—earned her the nicknames "Decrepit" and "the Dry I". Decommissioned in 1974, in 1982 Intrepid became the foundation of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City."
USS Intrepid (CV-11)

Next we boarded the USS Intrepid to check out the aircraft on the flight deck (I won't post most individual planes unless requested, you'll see them in various shots), and then we headed for the island...




Lots of gizmos. gauges and old phones (my memory confuses the bridge and control tower[?], too similar)...








Nice views of the aircraft below...








From the island, we walked down to the hanger entrance...




Wife still being a good sport, I was wanting a reference to show how big the Avenger is...




You probably know what all these aircraft are, but if not (I have trouble with some WWII planes), you can look here...
Intrepid Aircraft Collection PDF






"Her notable achievements include being the recovery ship for a Mercury and a Gemini space mission."...




The Lego model mentioned earlier...

Yeah, when the collision (flooding) alarm goes off, you can make pretty good time getting through them by swinging from the grab bar.

I would say it's not all that intuitive when you are touring aboard a museum ship. The sense of reverence kind of works against the impulse to grab and swing. The wife has a picture of me stepping through a bulkhead door while touring the Nautilus, despite all the times I have swung through doors of the same design.

Quick back story...

I made a mistake and used an older Fuji camera on this one day, asking my wife to take backup pics with her iPhone7, thinking a dedicated camera would take better pics. It didn't, which is why you see quality differences in these pics. Fortunately, she took that pic and you might be able to make it out.

What I did was to pull up the original, copy/pasted pixels into MS Paint and then saved as PNG (lossless, I think)...

No offense meant. I'll keep that in mind when we visit the USS Drum on 8/17 (included with the USS Alabama). We won't be wearing backpacks so it should be easier getting through those doors without using the bar.

Swinging post/pic deleted.

Glad you enjoyed the Intrepid & Growler Mark!

I have the privilege of being one of the ex-military volunteer exhibit explainers, and also one of the aircraft restoration team. I always admit to beng a slight fraud though, being neither US nor Navy, I’m actually ex-RAF. It can be pretty funny talking to British visitors (of whom we have quite a lot), watching it gradually dawning on them that I’m not speaking with an NYC accent..

Do you have any questions that remain unanswered after your visit, or which arose after you left?

Cheers

Mike

Lunch time, and the weather on Friday was becoming very nice...warm and sunny. This wouldn't last for even two days, becoming cold and rainy again by Sunday morning.

So we headed to the designated eating area, behind the Concorde...






We'd already checked the Intrepid Museum website to verify that we could bring our own lunch (bag lunches allowed), and brought with us leftover Juliana's from the day before...




...then chilled out a bit, watching the tugboats and kayakers on the Hudson...




After lunch, we returned to the bow of the ship where the anchor chains are winched...




...and then outside again to some serious AAA (I couldn't stand back enough to get them all in frame)...




Then it was off the ship again to grab a water and to explore the last entrance, nearer the stern, IIRC...




Wife's favorite part of any ship, the "kitchen"...








She was fascinated by this...





Something to note, when you're walking to the galley and mess decks, you begin hearing piped-in ambient sounds like dishes clanking and several conversations. It's very well done and kind of freaky, at first I thought we were about to walk into an actual museum restaurant!




A little further you hear snoring...




One last goodbye pic...




Yeah, it was *my* day and what a day it was!

How cool is this?! First off, thanks for volunteering your time. Everyone we talked to at the Intrepid Museum were most kind and helpful.

And in fact, I do have a question.

On the Growler, you enter by walking through the Missile Hanger, yet this is what you see (apologies for the fuzzy pic)...



This confused me, but I forgot to ask about it. Thanks in advanced for clarifying.

EDIT: I expected more of an opened space hanger area.

Great stuff. Went to the Mighty Eighth museum near Savannah GAthis past weekend. May post pics later

Thanks. Yeah, I'm ready to kick back and look at other people's pics now.

I believe I'm done. I'm going to go back over my NYC threads one last time tomorrow and make any corrections or additions, also remove a couple duplicate pics by making the duplicates a reference.

If anyone thinks of something I may not have shown and should have, it's possible I have a pic but didn't use it. Or if anyone else wants a zoomed in section, I'm happy to do it.

Hi again Mark,

I too am puzzled by your missile hangar pic. You should have entered the boat through a door into the starboard missile hangar, where normally visitors are briefed in front of that hangar before proceeding to a walkway forward through the port hangar before descending to the main deck. Your pic shows I think the passage through that main deck en route to the control room. The attached pics show I hope what I mean. We've recently been constructing a new USS Growler visitor centre, perhaps that activity changed the entrance protocol on the day of your visit.

The surface-launched Regulus system was the ultimate development of the original Loon (née V-1) sub-launched cruise missile system, but it was very much an operational dead-end. Though I'm no longer on the Growler, I used to enjoy briefing the concept something like this:

"In the event of a nuclear war, your task will be to surface 500 miles from the Soviet Pacific Coast, spend half-an-hour extracting a Regulus from its hangar and assembling its wings and tail, fire it towards Russia under radio control, passing that control over to a second missile control sub half-way to the target, hope that the Russians haven't noticed, then repeat the procedure with your remaining three missiles. Good luck with that.. "


Mind you the USN wasn't alone in pursuing this approach, cf. the contemporary Whiskey Long Bin Soviet SSGs.

Cheers

Mike

Thanks a bunch, Mike.

Yeah, I also watched a couple of YT videos, one of the entrance and the other that starts at my pic...



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jdqsvg_4pJo



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3NKqLCDpV4

The second video clearly shows I'm mistaken, my pic had to have been taken after the steps going down into the sub behind the forward torpedo room (as you pointed out, heading for the control room). One reason I got confused is because I combined pics from two cameras (renaming one set to match the other while trying to keep chronological order) which weren't time synced (wife's iPhone was correct time, mine was a couple of hours off).

Her theory is that I was pretty darn excited that morning, and with the sub being the first attraction, I might have just ignored the hanger. But she also doesn't remember the same colors (all the red) but that can always change, as the floor in my pic isn't red as in the second video.

Sooo...I was just mistaken and don't remember walking through the hanger. Thanks.