Last week I had my last final exam on Wednesday (actually the first time that I was done before Thursday). This along with the fact that I was leaving for home on Saturday meant that I had 2 solid days to spend exploring the city and packing. Sean, Vinny and I were originally going to walk all the way down Manhattan and photograph the whole experience, but the weather wasn’t favorable and I ended up waking up too late. So, we decided to head to the Intrepid Museum instead.

For those of you who don’t know, the Intrepid is a decommissioned U.S. aircraft carrier that has been converted into a museum. A few months back, they completed a complete new pier and dragged the carrier back from Staten Island where they were renovating it. They were still finishing much of the museum and as a result many parts weren’t open yet.

One of those exhibits waiting completion was the cruise missile launching submarine below. It has two dome shaped doors and contained massive cruise missiles that could be launched right off the deck of the submarine.

Next we went to see one of only a few surviving Concordes, the only commercial supersonic airliners. It sat on the pier with its landing gear extended and nose heat shield up. From afar, the plane looked quite big, but when we got near it turned out to be pretty small. It was nonetheless a majestic machine.

The underbelly was completely smooth and covered in instructions and numbers. I was able to capture a pretty good picture. Maybe I’ll turn it into a wallpaper sometime.

The doors into the aircraft were surprisingly small. We all had to duck to get in. I can’t imagine how basketball players would have liked this.

Here is another picture I took that may be wallpaper material:

Here is a tangle of conduits and pipes from inside the carrier. So complicated yet so orderly.

This airplane is a beast: the World War II era Avenger bomber. It had a crew of three and was equipped to launch torpedoes to sink enemy ships.

Here is an airplane with its wings folded up as is standard with planes designed to be launched from carriers. The intake looks like it could swallow a man whole.

The many decks have a few holes here and there that you can see the water below. It reminded me that a carrier is pretty much a normal ship with a huge table put on top.

The view through one of the many anti-aircraft guns that riddle the edge of the ship:

Here is sean next to what are pretty much ammunition dispensers. Men on the other side of the wall would have ammunition for the side guns brought up chutes from below and would deliver them through those doors in the wall.

Here is a more modern aircraft sporting the tiger motif from the famous Flying Tigers. They were a volunteer group independent of the U.S. Military that fought the Japanese up until the U.S. entry into World War II. There is also a John Wayne film called Flying Tigers I think is well worth watching.

Here we have two aircraft with the New York skyline in the background. The plane in the foreground is an A-6 Intruder and one behind is an F-14 Tomcat.

This is the engine and side of what is been my favorite airplane ever since I was 9 years old, the Blackbird. This one is an A-12, the predecessor to the famous SR-71.

I forgot which helicopter this is, but doesn’t it just look silly? I think the yellow paint adds to the comical look.

Below is the infamous Mig-15 with its odd split intake.

And finally the front of the Intrepid as we leave.

The visit was fun and tiring. Since admission is free to Columbia students, maybe I’ll go again and see the submarine and whatever else I missed.

Check out the complete set of pictures in the slideshow below: