-
Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?
Go here:
Edit Account Details and Profile
The Great Growler Gallery
- Thread starter woodman
- Start date
Why not just unclip your mask for a moment?
Did that, but the issue was trying to get the lower fitting to re-attach in the dark while finishing my join. Wouldn't have been a big deal in the fleet I guess, but I don't think my IP would have been too stoked about me just being silent and not responding to him for the next couple minutes. Front c/p of the -45 is very cramped as well, so really is kind of a hands off the controls affair trying to fix that issue.
And don't forget that in a joinup, you're throwing that other side of the aircraft up, and are actually sitting a little LOWER than if you're in level flight due to the off-center seating and bank angle.
You actually end up cheating low; you can't do a co-altitude left-hand joinup without losing sight. Makes div form interesting, as you can't cheat TOO low w/o screwing -3 and -4.
Exped doesn't count. Not yet, anyway.
You guys were never part of the plan, but contrary to what Short may believe, Exped staying around longer will actually help, not hurt the issue. Either way, you have to look at the manning doccument, not what any single squadron might happen to have at any one time, especially right after deployment. I'll bet a paycheck that even the exped squadrons aren't manned to six crews (6 & 18) anymore.Brett
Not really an issue in the Rhino. There is enough light to see hand signals even at night without NVG's.
Prowlers do div forms??? I didn't know there were even enough of them to do that
Dude, I'm a big fan of exped staying around longer; it's already allowed at least one good guy the opportunity to go to a Dept Head tour who wasn't on the original slate. If it helps us get more Gs, or (more importantly) allows us to meet our requirements without increasing an already ridiculously high op-tempo, great. However, it is my understanding that we've already phased out both billets and programed seats at A-school based on the belief that we'd be out of both Bs and Exped at 2012. Give me some more bodies for the FRS, EAWS and additional weapon school at Fallon, and I'll be a happy guy.
Can't speak for other warfare communities, but I know my squadron has winged at least 3 dudes into prowlers since I've been in the program (since last march), with two of those being in the last 5 months. I'm not familiar with the intricacies of VAQ manning, but I would take that to mean that they are planning on having them around for at least a little while (if you figure those guys won't be in the fleet until late next year or beyond)
Talk we've been hearing is that Navy Expeditionary EA is going to stay around in one form or another. We've been hearing everything from the current exped squadrons are going to become boat squadrons and 3 of the first few G transition squadrons will become exped to that the exped squadrons will transition sometime and take G's exped after the transition and a whole lot more. None of what we've been hearing talks of getting out of the expeditionary EA game.
What you are hearing is the Navy preparations for possibilities, not certainties. The Navy has not ordered any extra Growlers to fill the expeditionary squadrons and the USAF has not gotten off it's ass and decided what they want to do with EA. So the Navy, possibly with DoD hinting, is trying to prepare itself for whatever solution that DoD will decide on, which will hopefully be soon.
What do I think will happen? They will keep the expeditionary squadrons around a little longer, which won't be too hard since the Marines were already planning on keeping Prowlers until 2018, and then they get retired. They will use the Marines and Growler dets to fill the gaps while they figure out what they want to do with EA, which will be never. Maybe they will buy more Growlers but then you get to the problem of who will pay for them and man them. That is a tough one, since they will not be Navy squadrons and instead 'joint' ones, and the navy is not going to want to have the money or manpower come out of it's hide.
The Navy is doing the smart thing by planning for the future, which right now is very uncertain when it comes to EA. But the Prowlers aren't going to fly forever and it ain't exactly raining money to buy more Growlers. Let the USAF figure itself out, if it ever does.
P.S. For the OP, go Growlers!
Slightly OT: FWIW, congress signed off on 22 EA-18Gs for FY2010 & 18 F/A-18s (E or F not indicated). Looks like another good year for Naval Air, although nothing was mentioned about E-2D procurement - maybe that's already settled. Also, I am disappointed to note that the 3 NavAirRes VFA squadrons are still flying F-18As. Why can't the Navy afford to get these guys C models or even some Ds, if the Marines haven't torn the wings of all of them already.
13x VAQ squadrons with 6 jets each (or is it going to be 5 G's? I can't remember) plus a RAG with 15 jets equals 93 Growlers, not counting 209 if it stays around, or any jets getting fixed in the depot. Plus a few that the China Lake guys will probably keep on hand, and any other cats and dogs I'm forgetting.
Wiki sez the planned buy is 90, so I would think we'd need about 15 more jets funded by somebody, no?
There is only one reserve VFA squadron left, VFA-204 River Rattlers. One of the adversary squadrons, VFC-12 Fighting Omars flies F/A-18's too though. When I flew with CVWR-20 at Fallon they said the A+'s they flew were not much different than the C's the regular guys flew. As a matter of fact, VFC-12 traded their A+'s with an active squadron's C's a few years ago because the A+'s had a lot more traps left in them versus the C's.
Why don't we have more C's to go around? They stopped building them a while ago, simple as that.