Lost in the excitement of Fridays Arrival of the USS Gerald R. Ford, was the commissioning ceremony for the second AOPS, HMCS Margaret Brooke, which took place at the dockyard.
The third AOPS, has been delivered to the navy, and is tied up along side the first. The 4th ship is due to be launched mid November from Halifax ship yard.
(Above)Tanhauser had a tight departure from Autoport Friday afternoon, working her way around the USS Gerald R. Ford. (Below) Gotland, delivering a load of mud to pier 27. Gotland is working on Nirint’s service to Cuba and Norther Europe.
word has been floating around of something big and interesting appearing in the harbour this month. I suspected it might be the USS Gerald R. Ford – The US Navy’s newest carrier on her maiden deployment.
The ship had been exercising with nato partners, including HMCS Fredericton. Seawaves have listed a Port visit by a German frigate FGS Hessen, which was also exercising with the Carrier group in October, and also reported a 2022 visit by the Ford to Halifax, with no date.
NSBuzz is now reporting the ship is due on Friday.
4 AIS targets “Patrol Craft 1 (ca)”, “Patrol Craft 2 (ca)”, “Patrol Craft 3 (ca)”, and “Patrol Craft 4 (ca)” have been working in the Anchorage 1 area today. The CA designation likely identifies them as RCN to foreign naval vessels.
UPDATE: two C-2 Aircraft arrived in YHZ this afternoon from Virginia. the aircraft are carrier capable, and likely will be bringing dignitaries to the ship, based on activities before the Eisenhowers arrival.
UPDATE:
USS Gerald R Ford Pilot order is for 0800 tomorrow. Also Arriving are:
USS NORMANDY 10am
HNLMS DE ZEVEN PROVINCIEN 10:30
FGS HESSEN 11:00
USS RAMAGE 11:30
HNLMS VAN AMSTEL 12:00
HDMS PETER WILLEMOES 12:30
ALVARO DE BAZAN 13:00
Note all times are for the Pilot Station. they should appear in the inner harbour 30-45 minutes later.
Polar circle is an Ice breaking tug. the ship was previously under contract to a Russian Oil and Gas Company, but with sanctions due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the owners cancelled the charter.
The Polar Circle was built in 2006, and is registered in Cyprus.
The ship sailed through the Panama Canal, and was last in New York, sailing for Halifax September 21 to Halifax. Given the ship has no work, they took a leisurely sail, arriving Oct 7th. After spending a day alongside, the tug move to anchor in the basin, where it is presumably looking for employment.
The Navys leased supply ship Asterix has been tied up facing the bridge since it returned to the dockyard last week. crews have been painting it.
its scheduled to turn tomorrow at 11am, to its more normal stern to the bridge orientation.
M.V Confederation appears to be around out side the channel in Caribou NS. NFL has cancelled today’s sailings, citing a Technical Issue. It looks like Confederation left the channel after departing on the 8:30 am sailing to PEI, so presumably there are passengers aboard..
PEICanada.com has details from a passenger. the plan sounds like they will attempt to back off the sandbar at 5pm, the next high tide.
UPDATE: the Confederation was floated off the sandbar on the high tide just before 5pm, and returned to Caribou. A Statement from NFL indicated the boat suffered a steering failure, that led to the grounding. the steering was able to be repaired while the ship was grounded.
Sailings on Monday were also cancelled, citing a technical issue
HMS Prince of Wales, the UK’s second aircraft carrier sailed for a North American Deployment a couple of days ago. On the way out of Portsmouth, it appears the ship may have struck bottom, and suffered an issue with her Starboard shaft or propeller. She is now at anchor, undergoing inspections.
HMS Prince of Wales was reportedly due to visit Halifax this fall, and under go some exercises with a US Carrier Group.
This brings us to the C-2 greyhound, the US Navy’s carrier capable cargo plane, a variant of the E-2 Hawkeye, the plane features a bigger body, but same engines, tail and wings. This particular plane arrived at YHZ yesterday from Norfolk, and returned this afternoon. Flying as Rawhd75, the plane belongs to VRC-40 rawhides squadron.
After a 2 year hiatus, Air show Atlantic returned this past weekend to Debert CQQ3.
A full Photo gallery is posted to my Flickr page, containing 1400 images.
Missing from the show were the Snowbirds, who are operationally paused, and an Ukrainian L-29 Delfin was also unable to attend due to IMC conditions on its flight down.
The SkyHawks, the Forces Parachute demo team put on a show, leaping from a Short Skyvan (below), AKA the flying shoebox. CQQ3’s runways are 5000′ long, to short to safely operate a larger aircraft.
The North American Harvard MkII, was built as a trainer for air crews during the Second world war. The Yak-55m was a Soviet design built to dominate the World Acrobatic Championships. The yak-55 first flew in 1981, the M variant with shorter wings entered production in 1991.
Flying in formation, a Pitts Model 12, and a Nanchang CJ-6A
The RCAF provided a 3 pass flyby of the Aurora, and the CF-18 demo team performed.
The Static Display included a RCAF CH-148 Cyclone, CCGS Bell 412, NS DNR Airbus AS350, Forest Protection Ltd. Air Tractor and Gonzo – the DHC-8 with a long nose used by the RCAF for navigation training.