US downplays China carrier capability

ON BOARD THE USS JOHN C. STENNIS – As China begins sea trials of its first aircraft carrier, it may take Beijing at least 20 years to master aircraft carrier flight operations given its complexity.

This was the assessment of US Rear Admiral Craig Faller, commander of the US Navy’s Carrier Strike Group Three, during a short interview with News5 on board the US aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis.

The USS John C. Stennis, along with five escort ships, passed near the Philippines last week and was supposed to make a port call on Manila but this was cancelled due to typhoon “Mina.”

The Carrier Strike Group Three was en route to its patrol station off the Middle East.

Meanwhile, even as the United States deals with a weakening economy, Washington has no plans of reducing its influence and military presence specially in the Asia Pacific region.

US Ambassador to the Philippines Harry Thomas Jr. conceded there were speculations about the US reducing its military presence due to its economic problems. Defense and military spending were the first items to be cut by past US administrations in order to raise savings.

“I know many people have that question but President Obama and Secretary Clinton have said the United States is an Asian nation, we are committed to our treaty obligations and we will stand by them,” Thomas said in an interview on board the Stennis.

China began last month sea trials of its first aircraft carrier, which is based on the hull of the Varyag which China bought from the Ukraine in 1998.

Admiral Faller said aircraft carrier operations are very complex and “the United States has conducted aircraft carrier operations for many years.”

“It is very complex, requires much training, much integration,” Admiral Faller explained, adding “I can’t speak for China but I know how much time and effort we placed into this.”

“This is a skill we developed over decades,” he stressed. The US Navy has 11 aircraft carriers.

According to Jane’s Fighting Ships, the other countries that have at least one aircraft or helicopter carrier – apart from China – are the United Kingdom, France, Russia, Spain, India, Italy, Brazil and Thailand.

Philippine Navy Flag Office in Command Vice Admiral Alexander Pama said the Philippines is not unduly alarmed at China’s increasing naval warfare capability.

“We don’t view it as something as offensive to others as long as it is not being done offensively,” Pama said in an interview inside the hangar deck of the Stennis.

Last May, the USS Carl Vinson paid a port call in Manila. Ambassador Thomas stressed people should not give any meaning to the visits of the two aircraft carriers within a four month period.

“No, this has nothing to do with China. This is about the Philippine Navy and the US Navy celebrating the arrival of the BRP del Pilar and also celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Mutual Defense Treaty,” he said.

Admiral Faller said the Carrier Strike Group conducts routine operations in the Eastern and Western Pacific as well as in the Indian Ocean and Arabian Gulf.

The USS John C. Stennis is the seventh of 10 Nimitz-class nuclear powered aircraft carriers and is the flagship of Carrier Strike Group Three. The ship is named after the late US Senator John Cornelius Stennis, who served with eight Presidents beginning Harry Truman and ending with Ronald Reagan in 1988. Senator Stennis died in 1995.

The Mississipi-born senator served as chairman of the US Armed Services Committee from 1969 to 1980 and advocated a strong US military, specially a strong US Navy, in his own words, “a Navy second to none.”

The late President Reagan called Stennis “the father of America’s modern Navy.”

Accompanying the USS John C. Stennis are five escort ships, including the Ticonderoga-class cruiser USS Mobile Bay which handles the Group’s air defense, and four destroyers of Destroyer Squadron 21, made up of the USS Pinckney, USS Kidd, USS Dewey and USS Wayne E. Meyer. The destroyers handle surface and anti-submarine defense.

The News5 team was part of a select group of government and business leaders invited to visit the Stennis while she was underway off the Philippines in international waters.

The group was flown to the carrier on a C2A Greyhound transport plan, known as a COD (Carrier Onboard Delivery), and experienced an arrested carrier landing, which can be best described as a controlled crash.

Apart from Vice Admiral Pama, the other members of the “Distinguished Visitors” were Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr., Trade Secretary Gregory Domingo, BPI president Aurelio Montinola and ICTSI president Enrique Razon.

Prior the flight out to the carrier, US Navy pilots advised passengers what to expect on a carrier landing, such as the pilot will alternately increase and decrease power as he lines up the COD and that the pilot may fly around the carrier several times. Passengers were also advised about the “bolter” – where a plane fails to hook one of four arresting cables.

For this trip, COD pilot with call sign “Woody” snagged it the first time and brought the propeller-driven plane to a stop within 350 feet.

Landing on a carrier on board a COD, the pilot explained, is a comfortable experience since you are pulled into your seat. Unlike normal planes, COD passengers are seated facing the rear of the plane. COD crewmen wave their hands in the area as a signal the COD is about to land – giving the unexperienced time to prepare.

It would, however, be a totally different experience when the visitors take off.

The flight deck of a US aircraft carrier has been described as the most dangerous place on earth – as there are so many things happening at the same time. Planes are being armed, planes taxi across the deck to their catapults, deck crews cross in front of planes as they power up for take off and duck very low as the wings pass over their heads.

Carrier deck crews wear different colored shirts to designate their jobs: purple shirts fuel the planes; white shirts are safety and medical officers; yellow shirts direct aircraft movement on the deck; red shirts handle weapons and ammunition; green shirts handle catapults and arresting cables; brown shirts are plane captains responsible for individual aircraft; blue shirts handle chains and tractors.

Nothing can replicate the experience on the carrier flight deck. Even if one wears ear plugs and over ear protection, the noise still gets through – a combination of jet engines revving to full military power and the hiss of the steam catapults as the planes are launched.

A white shirt flashes a wide grin and yells: “There ain’t nothing like it in the world!”

The USS John C. Stennis conducted cyclic operations – which refers to the launch and recovery of aircraft. Fourteen aircraft took part in the cyclic, composed of EA6B Prowlers, an E2C Hawkeye and F/A18C Hornet and F/A18F Super Hornet.