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Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Navy Special OWL

My brother-in-law is an aerospace engineer and does consulting work for the military. He came across a story about a special visitor to one of the Navy's aircraft carriers and emailed me a link.

The following is from the Official Website of the United States Navy:

"Aviation Boatswain's Mate Handling 3rd Class Alex Dieringer holds "Fod," a screech owl that was found on the flight deck of the Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75)."

"080317-N-2017K-001 PERSIAN GULF (March 17, 2008) Aviation Boatswain's Mate Handling 3rd Class Alex Dieringer holds "Fod," a screech owl that was found on the flight deck of the Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75). The owl was discovered in the left-main wheel well of an F/A 18 Hornet during a pre-flight inspection of the aircraft during flight operations aboard the carrier. Truman and embarked Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 3 are deployed supporting Operations Iraqi Freedom, Enduring Freedom and maritime security operations. U.S. Navy photo by Aviation Structural Mechanic (Equipment) 2nd Class Shanon Kollmar (Released)."

I've heard that some owls can be very tame, but this is ridiculous! I wonder how long this little one had been hanging around the aircraft carrier before he was discovered. The USS Harry S. Truman is 1,096 feet long, 251 feet at its widest point and 20 stories high from waterline to masts. It is, essentially, a floating island, so I'm guessing that a Screech Owl could probably survive for a long time hanging around aboard ship...and from the looks of it, he seems pretty content. I wonder if they interrogated him after he was discovered, you know, just to make sure he wasn't a spy. Also, what is the significance of the name "Fod"?

1 comment:

yojimbot said...

Amazing...FOD is foreign object debris. Good luck on your deployment little screechy!