When An Aircraft Carrier Goes To War | Forces TV

as the Sun descends over the Arabian Gulf for US Navy jet returns from a seven-hour combat mission over Syria the USS Theodore Roosevelt this has been the daily routine since last December when she arrived here at the head of her Carrier Strike Group the sharp end of America's air war on Islamic state the Roosevelt known as CBN 71 was here at the very start of operations against is or - back in 2015 back then the CIA estimated the terror group had 31,000 fighters three years on it's thought fewer than a thousand are still alive hemmed into a small area of Euphrates River Valley in eastern Syria so it's a pretty complex battle space right now so if you look at where Isis has been corralled that's very small now so that being said there's a lot of different militaries that are involved and so in an effort to handle all the rules of engagement to make sure that we're targeting the correct things and doing it in in light of the rules of engagement that we're given it's very very complex for the pilots from an air-to-air perspective and an air-to-ground perspective very tight quarters with multiple militaries and multiple tactical airplanes all over the Roosevelt left San Diego in October joining two other US super carriers the Nimitz and Ronald Reagan in the western Pacific in a show of force to North Korea from there she continued her 12,000 mile journey eventually arriving in the Arabian Gulf in December typical amount of sorties for us a day is about 80 across the whole carrier but actually going over the beach in support of operation inherent resolve on average is between 14 and 20 so it's definitely we support about the same amount of sorties but as you alluded to from about two years ago when we're out here this airman was out here doing strikes we do a lot we did a lot more strikes back in two years ago or now we don't do it nearly as many there's less Isis to actually target the USS Theodore Roosevelt cost 4.5 billion dollars around 3 billion pounds and was commissioned in 1986 one of 10 Nimitz class super carriers operated by the US Navy on board she carries 70 aircraft and more than 5,000 sailors and airmen a flight deck is more than 300 meters long the length of 39 London buses during the Gulf War the Roosevelt conducted more missions than any other carrier and following the September the 11th attacks it was this ship that launched the first airstrikes on al Qaeda in Afghanistan Rosevelt carries 44 f-18 Hornets and super hornets electronic warfare aircraft transport planes and 11 Seahawk helicopters below in her hangar Bay's every inch of space is used hundreds of engineers and technicians working around the clock to keep her nine squadrons operational America's big stick and it's not difficult to see why during her last deployment to the Gulf in 2015 her jets flew nearly 2,000 combat sorties against Islamic state 3 years on the mission has changed and so has the battlefield Islamic state and now confine to a much smaller area of Syria and for the pilots flying those missions finding them is much more difficult to make January aircraft from the Roosevelt launched airstrikes on an Islamic state headquarters building in Syria killing a hundred and fifty terrorists in one go and last month for the first time she launched simultaneous strikes over both Syria and Afghanistan in the same day up all the gears about 30 pounds aboard CBN 71 at 298 pilots among them is Mark a naval aviator since 2006 he's flown missions over Afghanistan who was a former member of the Blue Angels display team at the US Navy equivalent of the red arrows like I said we're there to support the US forces on the ground and to rid the area of Isis occupation so a lot of what we're doing now is until intelligence gathering locating Isis developing those targets and then once we have essentially the prerequisites met for that target development then we'll execute some sort of strike flying onto a carrier is a particularly dangerous business the ship itself is moving at more than 30 miles per hour to generate the wind necessary for the aircraft to fly as they approach at 150 miles an hour the Jets have to hook one of three arrestor wires in an area no bigger the tennis courts guiding them onto the deck are the landing signal officers making sure they're on the correct glide path to make a safe recovery six stories above the deck is primary flight control it's manned by former Navy pilots and in here they monitor every air movements within five miles of the carrier personnel up here in the tower we watch the batter make sure the aircraft aren't gonna hit each other and things like that and we also watch the flight deck to make sure nobody gets in front of a landing aircraft or in front of an aircraft that's taken off and things like that so they all know what they're doing sometimes they get you know maybe just kind of go off on a loop and run across the flight deck some will wave off aircraft and stop aircraft from taking off if we have to save a life a few stories below is the launch operations room where they choreograph this complex ballet of moving parts and the board you're looking at right here this is the Ouija board okay this is a direct representation of what you're gonna see out on the flight deck all the little bother little templates that you see right here are actually where the aircraft are at right now okay so right now we're gonna be launching the yellow the yellow pins followed by the green pins so what I do is I manage all the aircraft on board the flight deck and the hangar bay down below before long the Sun drops below the horizon and the Roosevelt descends into darkness but this is a 24/7 war and operations from her deck continue through the night Jets blasting off into the blackness and later returning from their missions 18,000 feet shall be it three miles and then you see we have them all lined up now they're starting to come in and it'll come pretty quickly we land him about once a minute three decades after she was launched CBN's 71 and still deliver massive military power a big stick but still hitting hard the pilots flying those bombing sorties don't travel lightly as Jeremy from strike fighter squadron two two showed us so this is a special helmet that when the visor comes down it'll show symbology and the helmet so it helps us a do a better job in the airplane and then the rest of the year we have a G suit harness for stepping into the seat I rocky welcome and then a survival vest has a lot of stuff on it Camelback for drinking water mask for talking and breathing flashlights all kinds of stuff [Applause] yeah a lot of stuff here Oh heavy isn't quite heavy so I don't know probably 20 kilos volatile so pretty heavy so yeah it keeps us safe though it helps us draw a job the USS Theodore Roosevelt is effectively a floating town home to more than 5,000 sailors and airmen who deploy on average for seven months at a time one of the largest warships in the world she operates on an impressive scale maybe pilots describe it as the best roller coaster ride in the world just before takeoff they trim their f-18 jets ready for flight take their hands off the controls and wait to be shot down the deck at 170 miles an hour by the carrier's steam catapult cvn 71 is effectively a small floating town on average she's away from home for seven months at a time Roosevelt was the fourth of 10 super carriers to be built for the US Navy her crew includes just under 3,000 sailors and more than 2,000 Airmen and other trades the carrier's desalination plant can produce one and a half million litres of fresh water from the sea every day at inside she's fitted with two and a half thousand kilometres of cable and wiring 1,400 telephones 14,000 pillowcases and 28,000 sheets the carrier's crew can phone home and send emails but some things remain off-limits fraternization is still frowned upon and alcohol is strictly banned for all militaries the Internet is both a bonus and a bugbear to try and stop operational security or OPSEC details being spilled on social media the result employs a rather clever tactic there's five wipes right now that are back home in San Diego and one of them their main job is to monitor what comes out on Facebook to see if anyone is putting out opposite for us and as soon as she sees something she emailed me and we take care of it right away Theodore Teddy Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States serving from 1901 to 1909 throughout the ship there's reminders of him and his passion for naval power commanding the carrier is Captain Carlos sada yellow a Navy pilot he flew on the opening night of the Iraq war in 2003 below in his cabin area there's a collection of Roosevelt memorabilia the room itself a replica of the president's own office and furnished with the help of his family a couple of items that are of interest on the wall here was Theodore Roosevelt's first address at the US Naval War College where he talked about the importance of having a strong Navy and the benefits to the nation and to stability around the world here is a commissioning certificate while he was president of one of the officers who was on board the example fleet that he created the Great White Fleet that went around the world and personally signed by Theodore Roosevelt and donated to us to remind of us of his commitment and actions that transformed our Navy into a global maritime force Fitness is a large part of life on board ship some of it for pleasure some of it less so for these US Marines today is all about pushing themselves to the limit trying to stay fighting fit far away from home one thing the US military is very good at is taking America with it wherever it goes from stateside coffee to familiar food and of course the razzmatazz of homegrown sports and what could be more American than the Super Bowl it's now four o'clock in the morning and on this mess deck dozens of sailors have gathered to watch the big game to cheer on their teams and forget for a few hours for their thousands of miles from home feels good you know we ended up not washing any jet states so we got to sit down and watch the football you know just it's a good time to reset and just enjoy and forget that were on the boat for a good three hours or so so you know it's just really really appreciate you also catching the game is 21 year old Anthony Dutton a native of Columbus Ohio he's firmly backing the Philadelphia Eagles huge in a football like I said I'm more of a suicune but any team against the Patriots I'll root for it I feel like it's a way to relieve stress when you're watching a football game it's always fun it's always fun especially getting hit I mean I used to play myself and it that was one of the things that I like what it is getting hit and actually being able to sit there and say yeah I play the Roosevelt has five kitchens preparing more than 18,000 meals a day this galley alone serves up 4,300 x every single morning and there's enough supplies on board to stay at sea for three months we receive what's called replenish I see once a week parks me every Thursday and receive about and we're between 300 pallets of fresh food frozen foods so we can support it so we spend about 65 thousand a day on food pass alone during a lull in flying the crew gather outside for what's called a Fahd walk sweeping the deck in search of any foreign objects even something as small as a coin that could get sucked into a jet engine and cause a potential accident on average the Roosevelt sailors work thirteen and a half hours a day with one rest day a week when you join the Navy that's what you want to do how did you end up in this role it wasn't what I expected I was nervous at first and didn't want to do it but once I got into the job I enjoy it a lot so I like being outside on the flight deck I'd rather spend seven months outside than inside living quarters on the carrier are based on seniority and some are more cozy than others in here in one of the alleyways we have six racks to an ally and the middle rack in the bottom racks have coffin style which means they lift up as you can see here and we keep all of our stuff here all the essentials toiletries clothing and as you can see this alleyway is pretty cramped as you I can barely walk through it and having six people in here it can be pretty tight and pretty compact in here I really have to like your neighbors and able to put up with them for about seven months as well as these American aviators a Royal Navy exchange pilot is also onboard the Roosevelt flying the f-18 for the past few years British sailors and airmen have been training on these Nimitz class warships learning the skills they'll need to operate from the UK's new queen elizabeth-class carriers my job previous to this I was part of the training for Queen Elizabeth and setting her strike group and her strike up commander up for her getting ready to do that it's a phenomenal ship Queen Elizabeth is and bring her Air Arm here and the escort ship that she plans and I think it's gonna be a phenomenal asset to help us out for now though the US Navy ships remain unrivaled the next generation of American super carries the Ford class but you to come into service from 2020 on board will be f-35 Lightning and in years to come squadrons of unmanned combat aircraft with our nuclear reactors refueled Roosevelt herself has another 20 years of life left these nimitz-class carriers still delivering US military might across the globe well that's it for this week we'll see you next time it's probably the most dynamic environment that I've seen is for his hair their assets go to make this work and click as smoothly as it does tremendous amount of work [Music] oh yeah a typical amount of sorties for us a day is about 80 across the whole carrier it's very very complex for the pilots from an air-to-air perspective and an air-to-ground perspective very tight quarters with multiple militaries and multiple tactical airplanes all over the battle I would say is not over we're still conducting strikes and still conducting that close air support mission and Isis is still in the ground they have not gone away and they're not getting out you you

Channel: Forces News

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Keywords: Forces News, Forces TV, British Armed Forces, British, Forces, military, serving, military personnel, Ministry of Defence, British defence, British military, usa, united states of america, us military, us armed forces, uss theodore roosevelt, documentary, aircraft carrier, fighter jets, super carrier, doc

Id: S3LPWg2CS-o

Length: 18min 37sec (1117 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 25 2018