Nice report, Bill!

Awesome. Thanks for sharing. And bravo to giving honor to whom honor is due.

Bill is one of the good guys, IMO, and I'm glad the USN saw fit to include him on that VIP ride. It's nice to see a media guest paying attention and doing such a nice job of passing along what he learned. It's not as flashy as a Blue Angels or Thunderbirds ride-along, but there is a lot to see and pass along, if the media person is willing and able. All the classified stuff on board makes it challenging for the crew to host it in a suitable manner, but it is worth doing from time to time.

How often would y'all get those kinds of VIP tours aboard the boats? On a carrier, they were pretty much constant- as a matter of fact there are special staterooms set aside just for the purpose of hosting VIP visitors onboard.

In the late 1970's got a tour with 3 other white Canucks of a attack sub while in New London. Two African-Americans said were were relatives to get us on the base. We weren't sober either.

During my time on the Jack, we did one family day and no VIP ride alongs that I can recall.

That was really good. I'm impressed that he carried that report with just a few images and no video.

I can neither confirm nor deny ever seeing anything like that happen to get folks aboard ship...

That was a great report. Well done Mr. Whittle

Confirming that the bar must be pretty low to get a ride like this, I was able to go on one on the USS Santa Fe a few years ago. And it sounds like they have a fairly standard routine, since I went through the "angles and dangles" as well as the water slug firing.

Except for some rocking while were were surfaced leaving the port, and the angles and dangles, you'd have almost no way of knowing you were on a moving submerged submarine. It's very smooth, and there are no windows of course, so there's no way to get a sense of motion.