Maryland Fleet Week director Chris Rowsom gives Nestor all the facts and history of this semi-annual celebration that returns to Baltimore this weekend with spectacular weather and activities for everyone.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

fleet, fells point, inner harbor, week, baltimore, ships, harbor, part, boats, weekend, wife, navy, fort mchenry, planes, cooper, flying, happen, north, demonstrations, uss constellation

SPEAKERS

Nestor J. Aparicio, Chris Rowsom

Nestor J. Aparicio  00:00

Welcome home we are W and S T, Towson Baltimore. Baltimore positive we are positively at Cooper’s North right now we’re up here in beautiful Mays chapel on a sunny summer day. We’re going to be Cooper’s south. That’s Fells Point next Friday, also going to be at the state fair on Thursday in Kingsville. Before the Orioles game, and then next Wednesday, we’re going to be with Marcel over at the Coco’s pub in beautiful Oroville. We’ll have the scratch offs in the Maryland lottery of Pac Man scratch offs today. By next week, it might be up to the lucky sevens big appreciation or friends at the Maryland lottery port John Martin given all those homerun riches away because he orders are slugging it out. Also our friends at Liberty pure solutions keeping our water clean and pure and fresh Liberty pure solution check them out online as well as Jiffy Lube. Multi care, we come together today we’ve talked for a little bit here and if you hear our segments on am 1570 in order out of order a lot about Maryland Fleet Week and the flyover presented by Northrop Grumman we’re gonna be all over the city and I am blessed to have the the captain and the what is the official founder What are you a Fleet Week

Chris Rowsom  01:07

with Fleet Week Director Director right now? Yeah,

Nestor J. Aparicio  01:09

Director not a captain that sounds like captain of a ship or captain of a flight. The director of fleet we well, first of my wife’s apologize for not being because she wanted to meet you because Fleet Week was one of our favorite things live in downtown. We lived in the 23rd floor of harbor court. And when we first moved downtown, we thought fireworks will have everybody up and look out it’s better from the ground. And then we thought Fleet Week Well, IRL, it’s better for me. So all of these things we thought were gonna have the penthouse in the sky like the Jeffersons Fleet Week is not something you got to get out for Fleet Week. You got to get outside, see these planes go by they can they move too fast. But this was something my wife and I always circled. And it’s next weekend, and it’s back. And more than that, I wonder what the heck happened to it. So Chris ribosome is here, not rasam even though it’s spelled like Brian Ross, and he’s no stranger to our airwaves. It is a pleasure to have you on give me the whole lowdown man.

Chris Rowsom  02:03

Thanks very much. Yeah, we’re really excited to bring Fleet Week back to Baltimore. We our last one was in 2022. And it’s gonna be really, really exciting. We got our welcome ceremony starting off on Wednesday at four o’clock at the harborplace amphitheater where we’ll have you know, dignitaries speaking or Well, that’s when we’ll be welcoming the US Navy to Baltimore. Wow. Welcoming the 3 billion love

Nestor J. Aparicio  02:28

from Annapolis. That’s

Chris Rowsom  02:29

right. Well, we got a wipey come on one of their training boats coming up from Annapolis, as well as the three big ships got a Coast Guard ship and Fells Point. And we got Army Corps of Engineers, vessels. And one really cool thing that doesn’t happen very often is that the the hometown ships of historic ships in Baltimore constellation, the submarine tours, like chip, Chesapeake, the Coast Guard Cutter 37, and the seven foot no Lighthouse will all be open free for admission, just like every just like all the other thing

Nestor J. Aparicio  02:58

on and off of these boats thing I would say to my wife, we would see these gigantic Argentinian Brazilian Dutch, just these huge boats roll into the harbor, and you forget how deep the water is, right? How unique our harbor is. And I guess the reminder was one of the bridge went down. Right. So I would think that that morning, when we lost the bridge, I’ll let you speak to that, that you thought we can’t wait to be able to get boats in here, right? Like, this had to have been a little bit in jeopardy, at least maybe not the sky part of it. But the sale part of it in the water part of this. I would think the last 90 days have been as busy for you as they’ve been for Governor more than everybody else. Right? Well, when

Chris Rowsom  03:41

it happened, of course, you know, first of all, it was you know, absolutely unbelievable. To think about anything like that could happen. And then the next thing on my mind, well, of course, you know, we’re hoping that, you know, that people were okay, obviously, we lost six people and you know, our hearts go out to the families of those folks. But then, you know, we then started to think about a more Okay, how’s this going to affect our event and for the past? Well, since it started since it happened, we’ve been in direct content, direct contact with the unified command Coast Guard and all the other agencies that have been working to clear the channel. And so they’re watching that daily, right? Yeah, basically, and they assured us pretty early on that we should be able to put on the event. So we kept basically planning as usual. And well

Nestor J. Aparicio  04:36

you have the Army Corps of Engineers involved in this thing right there they were they were instrumental frontline

Chris Rowsom  04:41

and Senator there they are. And so it’s been so it’s been you know, they’re all great people. We really enjoyed working with him. We still are you know, right through Fleet Week we’re working with the Navy with the Coast Guard, but the Army Corps though all those folks have been you know, frontline right out there at the bridge. So it’s, it’s, you know, having Fleet Week there is coming up is actually a testament to their determination to get that clear.

Nestor J. Aparicio  05:06

Well, look, if you were Roger Goodell and you were the commissioner of the NFL here, and I said you How did the Superbowl start? And you would say, well, there were leagues to add Fleet Week start and listen, anytime you’re from you’re my wife’s from New Hampshire and her dad fought in Vietnam. And he came down here a couple years ago, and there was something going on about the battle in North Point. Maybe it’s celebration, it probably was celebration. And he went on a walk and the next thing you know, he called me and I said, Where are he’s not from around here. He said, I’m in North Point Village and I’m like, you walk from downtown and North Point Village at hails down there with him and are that at Sparrows Point, you know, battle battle Grove, and the war part of the trail of the Civil War here of all, you know, they, you know, 1812 everything with the Fort McHenry and the Star Spangled Banner, when you’re from this part of the world. It’s so like, crabs. You know, you think you have them everywhere. You think, Well, there’s fleet weeks everywhere. Well, we don’t have a Navy 40 miles away, you know, and you know, everywhere with ships that can bring bring ships in here we can Army Navy games, here, we have the Star Spangled Banner, like all of that patriotism, and flying and boats and Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. It’s in debt. You know, we were used to it, but I feel like fleet beat was happening in 1776 years, although I know it wasn’t. But it feels like it’s been going on all of my adulthood. But how long has it been going on? So

Chris Rowsom  06:31

the first official Fleet Week was 2016. But in 2012, and 2014, we had Navy ships in here in conjunction with the commemorations of the War of 1812. So but the first real nice celebration celebration, sure, right. Right. And so

Nestor J. Aparicio  06:48

that inspired the modern fleet that so so I’m not mistaken insane, because I love celebration, and my wife got cancer. After that we won the Super Bowl. Crazy things were going on about that time. But I remembered celebration, and we went down to watch it at a friend’s at Harbor View, which was further south down and toward locus point. And I don’t think the towers were even built there. Maybe they were they were just coming online the silo point, but we watched all of it. And we lived in a pretty good spot. We were at the harbor more pinched in and I saw celebration, I thought was maybe the greatest thing I ever saw the city do at that time. And I sent him a while they do this every year like because we live at the harbour. Let’s do this every year. Let’s make this and light city and I talked about that just brilliant. Even you know Patrick’s oyster festivals in Fells Point festival, anything that brings people together, but Fleet Week was inspired by celebration then really? Yeah,

Chris Rowsom  07:41

I’d say I definitely say it was it was sort of a continuation continuation of those two. Let’s do it again. Let’s do it again. And the Navy loves to come to town. We love it. When the Navy comes to town. I will say to you know, I’m a big Baltimore booster. The Inner Harbor, the waterfront you mentioned in Fells Point and you know, Fort McHenry and all that the waterfront in Baltimore is so accessible. It’s an open invitation open invitation to come down and enjoy the waterfront enjoy the the Inner Harbor Harbor, East Fells Point, Locus point.

Nestor J. Aparicio  08:16

Can I swim in it? You can’t hear you can’t wait. But and as much as we’re tongue in cheek with all of this about swimming and there’s a line of weeping waiting to get in. My wife is a sub paddleboard. Yeah. And she went out with Jessie a couple of summers ago. I mean, she’s out paddleboarding. And there’s the dominoes sign behind her and whatnot. The events that we can use the water for and the amount of time a couple years ago, how do you make this better every couple of years, right? I mean, because I I’ve seen the Blue Angels fly, we’ve seen all this stuff happen. This thing’s more unique, I think because you it’s not Blue Angels this year, it’s gonna be a series of different kinds of planes flying around and different flying objects. Right?

Chris Rowsom  09:01

Yes, we’ll have a number of different aircraft coming over the star of the show is the Marine Corps F 35. B demonstration team. And that’s a jet that actually does like vertical takeoff can hover. And that and that, that. That has been and we’re able to do that right over the Inner Harbor, as opposed like a drone like Yeah, sort of, although there is a there’s a pilot. Okay, but yes, yes. And and so that so that jet will be coming over. We we the purpose of the flyover was to bring more aircraft to where more people were, we’re where more people will be. Okay, so we used to have an airshow out at Fort McHenry, which is great, but very difficult to get to and, and it was glass,

Nestor J. Aparicio  09:52

they do these things in strips out in the middle of fields and stuff. We have a better environment to do that. So Oh, so

Chris Rowsom  10:00

the flyover actually is bringing all the aircraft in over the Inner Harbor. It’s not an air show, but it’s demonstrations of different aircraft. We’ll have a number of helicopter demonstrations, some actual formations. One of the cool planes that we’ve got coming over as World War Two era B 25. Bomber as well.

Nestor J. Aparicio  10:22

Well, I was telling Dorothy earlier, years ago, my wife and I got a media junket invitation from somebody like Dorothy to go down to Martin Marietta and fly on the Memphis Belle or the belle of Memphis, you familiar with this? Very similar, very similar. I got on that plane. My wife got on it. She had a good time I was traumatized. Because they’re loud. They’re a moot I mean, it was really something I don’t even know how to express them. I’m a talker. And I’m like, it’s one of those things you have to really experience to get on one of those. And my father made those back in the 40s. My father came to, to Baltimore from Scranton, and Mark Mary edited during the war and in the mid 40s. To work on those, Eric and there’s same aircraft, right, literally. Yep. Not replicas. Not really this. These are

Chris Rowsom  11:08

there. Yeah, this this one in particular is coming from the Delaware Aviation Museum. And you can access later, you can actually fly on it too. There’ll be a

Nestor J. Aparicio  11:20

sim with these, you know, these big canvas and I was drafted and nothing comfortable about it. Not not, I mean, literally, the rivets were, you know, hopefully not shaking. A little bit, at least in my eyes. I don’t know. Chris Rossum is here. He is the director of Fleet Week and Fleet Week, Maryland Fleet Week in flyover is next weekend. all weekend long. It is the 13th 14th 15th 16th the weekend that we’re gonna be on Wednesday, we’re going to be over Coco’s pub. And on Friday we’re going to be Cooperstown and Fells Point where Cooper’s North right now up here in somoni Mays chapel with all the music on the weekends, and we’re gonna be down on the cobblestone. This is going on at the inner harbor where we lived, and I was very familiar with it. Fells Point now a part of this and tent music we were talking about, all the things can be going on the square there, as well as the aforementioned right here in the county, hon. Martin state airport, there’s all there’s, I would think a lot of planes on the ground over there. That’s more what you do with the boats at the harbor. If you want to see the planes, you go to the airport. Right,

Chris Rowsom  12:24

right. That’s exactly right. There’ll be a number of planes on what we call static display. So that’s the basically you don’t get up there there around so that there and people can see those. And it’s also you know, and most everything that is flying, that is doing the flyovers is going to be stationed in at marten state and flying taking off and landing there. So there’ll be that activity, a little rumble going on. Yeah, like the b 25 will be taken off the the F 35 will be taken off. And so that’ll be pretty cool. And that’s Saturday and Sunday, nine to nine to four. So

Nestor J. Aparicio  12:56

food drinks, family, bring your kids come on down. weather’s going to be perfect,

Chris Rowsom  13:01

right? Whether it’s looking really good. All

Nestor J. Aparicio  13:04

right. I like to hear that, oh, we got on this. So three key locations for all this. But but you have STEM activities here. And I see that. And I want to give a shout out to Ed Mullen, my buddy who’s looking for the best cold cut in town. Don’t ask me why he was after crabcakes before and he’s been on the show. But anytime I see stem and I see young people, and I think how does that plane fly? How does that boat work? How you know, this is where the age of Wonder kind of kicks in for people to say, Oh, that’s a science track. That’s a math track. That’s we need to understand these things. And I talked to James Bond about this a living classrooms all the time with boats and educating young people. There’s all educational part of this, if you bring your kids down, it’s not just wow, it’s sort of how right literally,

Chris Rowsom  13:48

exactly. And so on Pier One right next to USS Constellation, we will have the stem to stern tent there. So we’ll have enough right

Nestor J. Aparicio  13:57

at the Inner Harbor right at the Inner Harbor,

Chris Rowsom  13:58

as you know,

Nestor J. Aparicio  13:59

right right in front of both pavilions but literally more on the Pratt streets on right

Chris Rowsom  14:02

next USS Constellation. We got a number of exhibitors there. Including women classrooms change, still doing

Nestor J. Aparicio  14:10

sleepovers down there certainly are these things.

Chris Rowsom  14:15

So, so living classrooms will be there. We’ll also have Chesapeake Bay Foundation. They’re doing oyster demonstrations. Federal Aviation Administration is going to be there if you want to learn about flying planes and how what how they do what they do National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration those are the folks that do all the oceanic oceanographic surveying and water quality testing and and all sorts of stuff NOAA does amazing accessible science and it’s so cool, you know, I mean, if I was if I was 16 years old right now, I’d be looking I wanted to go to sea and do stuff on the water. Noah is the group that I would be looking to enlist with, if you will, we’ve got a couple of groups there who are with cyber activity, doing doing cyber, in the cyber skills. You know, just learning about cyber, cyber, and how we deal with that. And today’s question about, so that’s, that’s kind of cool. And, you know, so the, and we’ll have a cup, the Navy’s gonna be there as well with some of their STEM demonstrations. So it’s gonna be a lot of different things there in the tent. And the you know, the idea is to inspire and challenge young people to get interested in explore careers in the tech sector, whether it be in the military on the, on the civilian side, there’s going to be something there for everybody. And so we’re really looking forward to that. That’s something very new to Fleet Week,

Nestor J. Aparicio  15:54

MD, fleet. week.com is the way to get that there’s an app involved in this, if you’re going downtown, everything’s free. Everything’s free. I mean, get behind that. This family friendly week long event honors the dedication of service members who defend our freedoms, it’s seen in the air, both past and present, it offers a chance for the public to board contemporary naval ships, to see sailors work up close. My wife loved doing that. And you know, what I always loved when the Brazilian ships come in, we get out and get their cocktails. We were always but there would always be signs at the harbor. We live there that the boats were available. These boats are there. They’re there goodwill ships, I mean, every one of them and these, these are all domestic ships, right? Yes. This time around. It’s all it’s all American. All right. Well, we got some patriotism here offers a chance for the public to board contemporary naval ships to see sailors work up close and explore historic vessels providing a window in the naval life across history. You can also get out of the Martin state airport, if you’re out here in the county and Middle River and be a part of that vintage, modern military and civilian aircraft can be flying over from 11 to four, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, you’re gonna see it, you’re gonna feel it, you’re gonna hear it. You don’t have to just be down there. These These planes are taken off from all sorts of places anywhere east and north of the city. You’ll see these planes, right. Yeah, I

Chris Rowsom  17:07

think so. I mean, there’s definitely a flight pattern, you know, coming in from probably, you know, right up the Patapsco River, kind of over Fort McHenry and then over the Inner Harbor, but, but yeah, you’re seeing on Friday,

Nestor J. Aparicio  17:18

you see it on Saturday and be a part of it. Come on down to fellsway. So the genesis of putting this together and how many moving parts there are and trying to get airtime on radio and video and all this stuff that so much of it is business and Patrick called me about two months ago and said they’re doing Fleet Week, we’re gonna do a crab cake thing. Fells Points embracing this Fells Points wants in on this. Originally, Fells Point wasn’t a part of this right. In the early early part to be a staging area. It was more of a harbor event. Right? Yeah,

Chris Rowsom  17:46

it was definitely more of an inner harbor and North Lucas point type of thing out of Fort McHenry, but we’ve always had ships at Fells Point. And so we’ve we’ve extended that offer to say hey, you know you guys want to get involved and they embraced it. And we’re really

Nestor J. Aparicio  18:03

these trains are coming over Fells Point

Chris Rowsom  18:07

you know, from the Broadway Pier, you’ll definitely be able to see see planes fly fly by how many fleet weeks

Nestor J. Aparicio  18:12

are there they do these type of things? I see you were very you slip this in this is what the smart guys do. It’s not an air show. And I’m like, I didn’t even know that that you know, I don’t know what the difference is. What would an air show be that would be different and we’re not the only ones that have Fleet Week this or eight weeks and a lot of places is it a brand I want to understand it.

Chris Rowsom  18:32

So Fleet Week is actually part of to be technical about it is Chief of Naval Operations outreach. It’s basically recruitment it’s it’s it’s and it’s also a Liberty opportunity for the sailors that that are on the ships that are visiting so ship comes into town. We have folks that you know obviously the public is welcomed on board we hope that we’re the Navy hopes that they’ll sort of inspire some kids to

Nestor J. Aparicio  19:04

goodwill ambassadors in the white Navy is yes my wife wants a picture with the handsome guys right always right there you go.

Chris Rowsom  19:11

So there are a number of fleet weeks around the country but not as many there are Navy weeks oftentimes but fleet weeks. I see

Nestor J. Aparicio  19:20

people in my Facebook group like San Diego or some other place Yeah. Where they have these in Florida in

Chris Rowsom  19:25

different places. Yeah, that’ll Fort Lauderdale in New York. It’s every Memorial Day weekend there you go. All right. Oh, so and we’re we’re the Navy likes having the fleet weeks here in Baltimore. We’re really close to Washington. Sure. So it’s sort of easy for folks you know the top brass to who are down like in the Pentagon or something like that to get up here to enjoy the ships and Annapolis. That’s right. That’s right. Well, they

Nestor J. Aparicio  19:51

do a little Fleet Week down there too. They do a flyover down there once in a while. During

Chris Rowsom  19:54

the commissioning weekend. Yeah, when they when all midshipmen are graduating, yeah.

Nestor J. Aparicio  19:59

All right. So I watch the news from time to time. Chris rocm is here and everybody confused with Brian Ross on my basketball buddy. He’s the director of fleet weeks mero fleet we can fly over presented by Northrop Grumman and local as well. June 12. To the 18th. They call it a week long celebration really kind of kicks in Wednesday and Thursday by Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We will have a full noise in the skies your next week or heels are home next weekend to the Phillies was we we usually do the show at fade these on Fridays when the Orioles are on but we’ve moved that next week. We’re going to be Cooper’s and Fells Point. We’ll be back and families in a month of we’re waiting for the Yankees to come to town. Wait for the big shots come down to July. We’ll be back down to fade these were gonna be at State Fair in Catonsville on Thursday morning before the orals take on the Blue Jays. We’re going to be at Coco’s next Wednesday. We’re going to be Cooper’s south or Fells Point next Friday, during the show down there, eat some more gumbo, and then we’re going to be at Costas on the 20th and at Pappas in Parkville. On the 25th I want to wish you luck with this I mean I mean not only check the app here the Weather app is do we go 10 days out to get the 10 day forecast here I’m no norm Lewis or Marty bass or or Bob Turk but says 83 and sunny next Thursday’s what I’m seeing yeah Carlos to be watered that right i

Chris Rowsom  21:10

Sir I did I did I ordered it Yep.

Nestor J. Aparicio  21:13

What would happen whether it was bad you move in today or?

Chris Rowsom  21:15

No, no, it’s rain or shine. All right, rain or shine?

Nestor J. Aparicio  21:18

Well right now we’re gonna shine. Thanks for coming by Cooper’s north. Appreciate you Chris Rose. Anything we didn’t know about this one it’s over with but you know, the next one is 26 happening for sure. Or where

Chris Rowsom  21:30

we Baltimore’s right now part of a five city consortium of cities that are putting together the America 250 sale 250 Tall Ships event. I heard a lot of that’s gonna be more like a celebration right? Be more like a celebration. Yes. In the planning has started already. And is that a fourth of July thing it will be just before Baltimore is the port. The weekend before Fourth of July and then New York gets the Fourth of July.

Nestor J. Aparicio  21:59

It’s still better here. It is. A pretty good time in New York last weekend. Big appreciation everybody. Here’s Samantha thank you for making the show. Great today. My thanks to Dorothy Fuchs as well. From a purple dot patch Russell was here his daughter Kylie came by to talk about mental health. Terry talked about cancer survival that I forget anything I know I forgot somebody around here. Thanks Samantha earlier as well. We’re gonna sign off here from Cooper’s north are we get back to our regularly scheduled programming Oreos on the road at least all week long. Luke is at a training camp. We have OTAs this week we have mandatories next week, lots of Lamar Jackson stuff I’ve been sitting here at Cooper’s I saw all the TV shows are talking about Lamar Jackson. So we we must be pretty good around here I am Nestor signing off from Cooper’s north. My Big thanks to our friends at the Maryland lottery in conjunction with Liberty pure solutions, keep my water clean and Jiffy Lube multi care, go get your oil change and get data Fleet Week next week signing off for Cooper’s north. I’m Nestor we are wn st am 1570, Towson Baltimore and we never stop talking Baltimore positive