"Call the ball," is the traditional welcome of the LSO (Landing Signal Officer) to an arriving pilot attempting to land aboard a very small, pitching deck at sea. Welcome to the first blog onboard the USS YORKTOWN (CV-10) at Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum <https://www.patriotspoint.org/>. I promise your landings here at this blog will not include any scary night time landings, but we'll certainly have stories about those in future posts.
I'm Butch Hills, retired E-2C naval flight officer, private pilot and historian. I now help to bring CV-10 to life as she continues to serve her nation, first as a warship (1943-1970) and today as a museum and classroom at Mount Pleasant, SC (1975-present).
Every month I meet fascinating folks onboard visiting the second of our nation's Essex class aircraft carriers and will be posting their visits and pictures/videos in the future. Just last week we had a B-25 pilot onboard who was at Clark Airfield in the Phillippines December 1941 when the Japanese attack took place. Also we'll cover the stories of individual Americans (why do they come here?) and the plethora of Boy and Girl Scouts who actually camp onboard.
I also hope to hear from you, any and all questions...We have a ready deck for you here at Patriots Point onboard the YORKTOWN...
Welcome aboard,
Butch