Good bye Barracuda!

Just read at Publico (national newspaper) that the NRP Barracuda made its last mission.
Will now became a museum.

Its most known mission was the one it "atacked" and "sunk" the "USS Eisenhower" aircraft carrier.

A dificult mission for any sub and even more for a sub with that technology and age (15 years in 1983).

It was delivered in October 1968. With 42 (planned for an active life of 25) Years old (Oct.2010) it was the oldest sub of the Nato fleet, a real museum in active duty...

In 2008, during Navy Day celebrations, that were carryed through at Madeira, I had the oportunity to visit it.
You can check the photos of that visit here:

http://www.photoblog.com/ruisousa/2008/05/21/

Will be replaced by the brand new NRP Tridente class subs.

Grande Reportagem: Combate à Pirataria na Somália

Como disse, a SIC transmitiu esta noite, no programa Grande Reportagem, uma peça acerca do combate à pirataria na Somália e respectiva participação Portuguesa.
Estava muito interessante.
Para os que não tiveram oportunidade de ver....


Fica um abraço a todo o pessoal da Álvares Cabral, em especial ao Cmdt.Hugo Cabral....estava muito janota, a a falar na TV...LOL ;)

Grande Reportagem: Operação Ocean Shield

No último post, salientei um blog dos elementos da NRP Álvares Cabral integrados na Operação "Ocean Shield", de combate à pirataria na costa da Somália.
Nem propósito, a Grande Reportagem desta noite, da SIC, irá ser dedicada a esta missão, tendo a equipa de reportagem acompanhado, tanto quanto sei, durante 4 dias, as operações da fragata Portuguesa.

Em termos aeronáuticos, será de destacar, sem dúvida a operação do destacamento Rogue, da EHM (Esquadrilha de Helicópteros da Marinha).

Especial atenção ao esquema de cores utilizado pelo 19201, um esquema de baixa-visibilidade, bem como a "FN Herstal M3M MKIII", novo equipamento que começou a ser utilizado no decorrer desta missão.

Eyes on: Sailor News

Sailor News is the unoficial blog for the Portuguese presence to the SNMG1 (Standing Nato Maritime Group 1).
This force is currently on the area of the Africa Horn, fighting the Somalian pirates and assuring the security of maritime traffic of the area.
It's now under Portuguese command with NRP Álvares Cabral as the Admiral Ship.
The mission is near its end, when Portugal will hand over the command to the Denmark and NRP Álvares Cabral will be back home.

There's been a lots of diferent and interesting posts but this last post really called my atention as I never had seen so many dolphins around....

Anyway, well worth a visit:
http://missaonato09.blogspot.com/

For the foreign, it's writen in Portuguese, but people say an image is worth 1000 words, and there's a lot of interesting ones to see...

(NRP Corte Real, the same class of NRP Álvares Cabral on the Navy Celebrations at Funchal)

Navy Lynx at LPMA and new Photo of the Week

Last Tuesday, the President of the National Parliament made a visit to Ilhas Selvagens (Savage Islands) which are part of the Madeira Archipelago and the most southern portuguese territorry, near the Canary islands.

He made the trip on board N.R.P. Bartolomeu Dias, the new Portuguese frigate.
Anyway, alghtough the crew had to make the trip since Lisbon ;) the dear President of the Parliament came by plane to Madeira and then by Helicopter to the frigate.

So, the frigate's helicopter made a few trips during the day for transportation of the political and military high ranks and also the journalists.

Just caught one of those flights, by the end of the day and what a surprise it was...
Comms were bad and wasn't understanding the call sign (also the comms heard from the heli had a background sound of a washing machine or a cake beater...a long flight in that should be nice...argh..!)

Anyway, it was the first time I caught the Lynx at the Airport, and with a nice afternoon sunlight, reasons for the Photo of the Week.

On final to runway 05.








It came to a complete stop...in air.


an then it started an "air taxi" to stand Alpha 12.


An interesting sight, seeing that litle bird flying low (low speed and low altitude) passing the bigger birds. Too bad there wasn't much traffic. When I caught this one it was already a bit far...


After "unloading" the passengers, refueling for another flight.
Tower asked for intentions:
-Back to "mother ship" and then return with another batch of passengers.


After refueling they got authorized to take off from taxiway: power, take off, air taxi to taxiway Bravo...
These ones were taken with already low light, far in the distance and "fighting" against the fence (and loosing...) so the results weren't that good...


And off they go, heading "mother ship": N.R.P. Bartolomeu Dias.

New Photo of the Week - Navy Lynx

This week, the Photo of the Week is dedicated to E24th HM (Navy Helicopter Squadron).
One year ago, the Navy Day celebrations were carried through at Madeira.
Like I said before, a fantastic week and also the first time I got to see the Navy Super Lynx in action.
This photo was taken from Funchal "beach" with the Lynx almost on vertical with me in the final part of the demo.
Pretty sure the pic isn't able to pay justice to the moment, the sensation of noise and power...


Took lots and lots of photos and it's allways hard to choose, so today, I'm sharing a few ones of the 24th May 2008 demo.
It's just a small random selections of the pics I took that day.

The rescue demo


The boarding demo. On that day, we also got the first visit of the Independence of the Seas, which was, at the time (don't know if still is) the world's biggest cruise ship.





Inserting marines




The ending of the demo with one of the Lynx landing on NRP Álvares Cabral getting ready to return to the mainland and the other wenting to NRP Corte Real at the port.

New Photo of the Week - NRP Corte Real

This week, the Photo won't be from a plane.
I'll be heading to sea...

Exactly one year ago, on the 18th May 2008, NRP Corte Real, a Portuguese Navy frigate was arriving to become part of the Navy Week celebrations at Madeira (included in the celebrations of the Funchal city's 500 Years).

It was indeed a fantastic week, full of activities and a with a naval movement never seen (by me) around here.
The arrival of Corte Real, with a couple of Lynx helicopters on board also marked the arrival of the air branch of the Navy. It would be the first time I'd see Lynx helicopters flying and thanks to the fantastic cooperation of the EHM (Navy Helicopter Squadron) and of CTen Hugo Cabral (also my thanks to Luís Laranjeira) I was able to follow the flights and air activity in a much better way than ever before.

So, some pics of the arrival...