Return of HMC Ships HALIFAX and ATHABASKAN.

The first RCN ship I saw this morning (November 20) was HMCS KINGSTON, which I assume has just returned from a refit elsewhere, based on the way the towing gear was rigged and the emergency tow line running down the port side with the float trailing aft.

HMCS KINGSTON and CFAV Glenbrook.

HMC Ships HALIFAX and ATHABASKAN, and ATHABASKAN's two embarked (I assume) Sea Kings, also returned to Halifax this grey and blustery morning. Both ships, along with other RCN assets (a submarine and minesweepers), departed around September 8 to participate in the NATO Joint Warrior (UK waters) and Trident Juncture (off the coast of Spain and Portugal) exercises. Excited family members were waiting at HMC Dockyard for their homecoming. One person I spoke with on the waterfront was waiting for a sailor on HALIFAX who had previously deployed on FREDERICTON, and had spent most of the past year at sea away from home. 

The two ships represent two RCN extremes: although 20+ years old, HALIFAX is newly refitted with the latest in sensors and weapons, while ATHABASKAN is 40+ years old and principally filling the role of a training platform at the moment. The RCAF Sea Kings are older than both.

HALIFAX was already on her way in when I got my first photos, with the small general cargo ship Dinkeldiep in the foreground.

An RCAF CH-124 Sea King also soon appeared.

CH-124 Sea King, airframe #429

I'm pretty sure the crew hanging out the door waved, but my hands were full with the camera and I didn't manage to return the wave. ATHABASKAN carried two Sea Kings, which is somewhat unusual these days, as the second hangar is often used as a gym. 

CH-124 Sea King, airframe #419

CH-124 Sea King, airframe #429

CH-124 Sea King, airframe #429

#429 did two full circuits of the lower harbour, while #419 did one, before returning to Shearwater.

HALIFAX rounding George's Island.

Sea King #419 flies past HALIFAX.

A ferry passes HALIFAX.

The wind was fairly blustery, and blowing up the harbour, as illustrated by the spray being kicked up by the ferry. HALIFAX maintained this station for some time until two tugs came out to greet her. 

ATHABASKAN passing the light on McNab's Island.

When I first checked the Marine Traffic website this morning, HALIFAX was in the lead doing 15 knots with ATHABASKAN some way behind. By the time I arrived on the Halifax waterfront, ATHABASKAN was doing 20 knots, which increased to 25 knots for a while, before slowing back to 15 knots or so when the above photo was taken. Her exhaust plume was visible over the horizon before she was.

ATHABASKAN.

ATHABASKAN passing the light on George's Island.

The old warrior showing her age.

As mentioned in previous posts, ATHABASKAN is the last of her class in service (and to be serviceable at all, for that matter), and presumably doesn't have that much time left. It will be interesting to see if she remains in commission long enough to see the return of the last of the frigates from their FELEX refits, or if she will pay off before then. 

All the while I was waiting between HALIFAX's arrival and ATHABASKAN's appearance, a large contingent of sailors ran and walked past me on the boardwalk, for what I later discovered was a Navy 5k run along the waterfront. It seemed like the entirety of the east coast fleet personnel were running past.

Note: Updated on 29 November 2015. 

HMCS PRESERVER: Helicopter Hangar tour

If one ignores the three aircraft carriers, the RCN ships with the largest helicopter hangars (each for three CH-124 Sea Kings) were the three AORs collectively in service from the 1960's through to the 2010's: HMC Ships PROVIDER, PROTECTEUR, and PRESERVER. Unlike the earlier PROVIDER which had a single funnel on the ship's centreline, splitting the hangar in two and requiring two hangar doors to port and starboard, the later PROTECTEUR and PRESERVER had twin funnels port and starboard which allowed one large uninterrupted hangar space and a single hangar door. 

Looking aft from a platform at the forward end of the hangar, with the hangar door in the background.

PRESERVER's hangar has a narrow throat aft at the hangar door, and widens out as it goes forward. Storage for a full complement of three Sea Kings would have two helicopters port and starboard at the forward end of the hangar, and a single Sea King aft. 

Hangar from deck level looking aft.

The hangar was mostly given over to exercise equipment during my visit, and it will almost certainly never see a Sea King again.

Helicopter tractor in front of the hangar door.

The AOR's were big enough that they did not require the Beartrap helicopter hauldown system (presumably the hangar configuration and helicopter stowage positions would have complicated things anyway), and they instead required a tractor to haul a Sea King back and forth from the hangar to the landing deck. To the left of the photo, behind the door, is the ladder up to the FLYCO office on the starboard side of the hangar. The FLYCO office is effectively the ship's Air Traffic Control tower for helicopter flight operations.

FLYCO office looking aft.

The port side of the FLYCO office looking aft.

View from FLYCO.

View to starboard from FLYCO.

The view out the starboard window is partially blocked by one of the Hepburn cranes, and the starboard LCVP is visible to the bottom left of the photo.

Last of the 280's - HMCS ATHABASKAN

Once upon a time, there were four IROQUOIS (DDH 280) class destroyers, all of which were commissioned into the Royal Canadian Navy during the early 1970s. Wonders of modern warship construction at the time, they received extensive upgrades in the 1990s to transition from antisubmarine warfare (ASW) destroyers to guided missile area air warfare (AAW) destroyers. This bought them, in some cases, another 20 years, but now only one remains: HMCS ATHABASKAN (DDH 282).  HURON was paid off first, and sunk in an exercise. IROQUOIS and ALGONQUIN both paid off this year.

PRESERVER (left) and ATHABASKAN are the two oldest warships ships remaining in RCN commission. ATHABASKAN is the only one of the two still serviceable, with PRESERVER sadly operating as a glorified refueling barge.

Being the last of your family isn't easy. An accident during her tow whilst returning from a refit on the Great Lakes caused some minor damage, and she was never completely returned to her full fighting trim. More recently she has had propulsion problems (despite cannibalizing sister IROQUOIS for many parts). Despite this, she and HMCS HALIFAX (FFH 330) have deployed this week to an exercise in Europe. In the process of leaving on Thursday morning, ATHABASKAN circled the harbour with a Sea King on deck, which proceeded to warm up and take off before she left. My morning ferry ride put me in the right place at the right time, so to speak, to capture some of this.

On ATHABASKAN's return to Halifax from refit in 2013, several holes were visible in her hull above the waterline just aft of her pendant number on the port side, from where she hit the tug that was towing her.

I first saw her headed out beyond George's Island, after which she turned and returned to the inner harbour, with the Sea King on deck. 

Just rounded George's at this point.

Somewhere along the Dartmouth shore, as I was about to pack it in, the Sea King fired up. Around the same time, ATHABASKAN's exhaust plume of blueish smoke also became more apparent. Apparently she is still having some propulsion issues!

The Sea King continued to spin her rotors as ATHABASKAN turned to head back south. I was hoping that she would lift off before getting too far away from my vantage point on Cable Wharf, and I wasn't disappointed. 

Just after the Sea King lifted off. Note the rotor tip vapour trails.

Helicopters can be challenging to capture properly. With any prop or rotor driven aircraft, it is good practice to slow the camera's shutter speed in order to impart motion to the propeller or rotor, otherwise the aircraft can appear static in the air (as if it were falling). Plane propellers spin faster than helicopter rotors, so of the two, helicopters require slower shutter speeds. I usually aim for 1/100 of a second for helicopters, although the shots here were at 1/200 of a second because I forgot to change to shutter priority mode on the camera. Still, not too bad.

After liftoff, she moved right and flew along the starboard side of the ship.

I consulted Wikipedia about the vapour trails. Wingtip or rotor blade tip vortices are always present when lift is being generated, but are only visible when humidity conditions are just right, so that water vapour may condense or freeze in the core of the vortices. It was quite humid this week, so apparently conditions were right. You can also see the water kicked up from the harbour by the rotor wash from the Sea King.

Sea King headed back to Shearwater, ATHABASKAN passed the lighthouse on George's on her way out.

After she passed George's, I had to tear myself away to get to work. Hopefully the exercise is uneventful (well, in the bad sense anyway) for ATHABASKAN!

1960's CH-124 Sea King landing demonstration

Before the RCN started flying the CH-124 Sea King from the ST. LAURENT class destroyers (DDH) in the mid-1960's, starting with HMCS ASSINNIBOINE, the thought of flying a large ASW helicopter from a relatively small (~2800 ton) ship was a fairly novel idea. Novel enough that the RCN performed demonstrations of the DDH/Beartrap/Sea King combination for other navies, including the US Navy.

A good description of the system can be found in the Wikipedia article on the Beartrap so I won't repeat it here.

The photos below are from one such demonstration, courtesy of Joseph Bowers AW1(AC) USN Ret. They were taken by one of his flight officers on one of their flights to either Norfolk or Halifax as part of Air Development Squadron 1, based in Key West, Fla. If anyone thinks they know the name of the photographer, please let me know.

The Sea King is connected to the Beartrap with the cable here.

The Sea King has been hauled onto the deck.

Close-up of the Sea King on the helo deck.

The identity of the DDH is not known, but I wonder if it might  be FRASER as she performed a demonstration for the USN in 1967. TACAN was introduced later, so the lattice mast would not have been installed at the time of the photo.

CCGS Cape Roger and a Dutch Submarine

The ferry was well timed this morning to let me capture CCGS Cape Roger on her way from BIO out to sea. After passing under the MacDonald Bridge, she headed out through the passage west of George's Island.

CCGS Cape Roger under the MacDonald Bridge. The tower crane to the right is on the site of the Navy's new Junior Ranks mess and accommodation building, scheduled for completion in 2016.

CCGS Cape Roger. When ships are departing in the morning, I often get three main photos: 1. Ship X in front of Purdy's Wharf.

CCGS Cape Roger. 2. Ship X with only horizon for background, so she appears as if she is at sea.

CCGS Cape Roger. And 3. Ship X with the George's Island or McNab's lighthouse somewhere in the background.

The Dutch Walrus class submarine HNLMS BRUINVIS also made an appearance today. I didn't manage to get her underway (though others did), but I did manage to catch her alongside in HMCS WINDSOR's usual berth.

HNLMS BRUNVIS.

Yesterday morning, I managed to capture sister ships HMCS IROQUOIS and HMCS ATHABASKAN both alongside and emitting steam.

HMC Ships IROQUOIS and ATHABASKAN. The latter is the last IROQUOIS class ship remaining in active service.

I also caught a Sea King that buzzed the ferry I was on in the afternoon. I had to be quick to get my camera out and select a shutter speed slow enough to show some movement in the rotors.

CH-124 Sea King.