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Nice touch with a VAL-4 Bronco on the headline space at the top of the page. It's rare that one person's posts can affect so many in such a positive manner. There's a hole in Air Warriors now that can never be filled in the same way again. Fair winds and following seas.

I'll be there. #31 and counting (starting in 1977, but missing '84-88).

Tacna is on the northern border of the Barry Goldwater range and is just east of Yuma.

A blast from the past. Was in a fleet squadron with a couple of those guys, and later in the Reserves with a couple more. One of the guys "bought it" a couple of years later in the back seat of a VF-121 Phantom off San Clemente Island during FCLPs. He was to report to Pensacola in a couple of...

Favorite quote by Plumley: Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: I wonder what was going through Custer's mind when he realized that he'd led his men into a slaughter? Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: Sir, Custer was a pussy. You ain't.

Sometimes it's "get the Skipper" (when it's deserved). CAPT Carroll "Lex" LeFon, USN(Ret), who passed away this spring when the F-21 he was flying for ATAC crashed at Fallon, wrote the blog "Neptunus Lex" that was somewhat a legend in the military bloggers sphere. One of his children has put...

Latest word about the remaining Kiwi A-4Ks is that they have been purchased by Draken and will be used for contract work. Five single seaters and three two-holers in the deal. http://a4skyhawk.org/content/draken-international-inc and...

One of the West Coast CAGs late in the Vietnam war received a letter from the Cubi Point O'Club. It was a bill for $75 to replace a window that had been broken by one (or some...) air wing members during the boat's last in port period at Subic/Cubi. CAG sent a check for $150 and a message "We'll...

If I remember correctly, you only have to wear one row of the top "gongs." Willy Driscoll used to wear only three ribbons -- Navy Cross, Silver Star (with a couple of stars on it) and a Purple Heart. 'Nuff said...

In the spirit of the old Navy (or .... maybe they're still around...) BCD issue glasses, this is truly a BCD Power Point.

Was coming back to Miramar after a night hop and on approach control there was a Marine H-46 from Pendleton that was having an emergency and was asking for vectors to Miramar for a roll-on landing. We were in the fuel pits when he was on short final, so we turned up Tower frequency when he was...

...after a year of not being ('92) and two years in San Diego.

Back in 1972 while I was in either AOCS or starting VT-10, they took us to NAMI at P-Cola and wired us up with pins in our scalp (EEG) and flashed lights at us to see if we would have a seizure. The story they gave us was that someone had been sent into a seizure when he closed his eyes to take...

... I'm not as _think_ as you _drunk_ I am ....

He was also on the 2007 LSO panel at that year's Tailhook Reunion in Reno. He had changed services and was a Lt. Col. in (I believe) in either the National Guard or Air Force Reserves flying one of the small biz jets or props out of the DC area. (My memory isn't too clear on all the details... I...

Not really... he used the same stories no matter where he was giving his talk...

Back in the late '70s/early '80s I saw at least two versions of the videos. Plus, he made a personal appearance at one of our drill-weekend Saturday morning training sessions at NAS Miramar when he was the AirPac Flight Surgeon. He had the Naval Aviator psyche absolutely NAILED. Most of his...

Interesting article about the Good 'Ole Boys in Jackson and their birthday party for the 1911. clicky

The first F-35C (CF-1) did the first catapult hookup tests on Wednesday, April 6, 2011. clicky Is it just me, or isn't it a bigger deal than they're making it out to be that the tow bar didn't mesh up with the shuttle on the initial fit checks? "The test team also investigated an issue...

After being literally in the center of the Tailhook whirlwind, making Paula a hero is... well, there aren't really words strong enough. It started as a well-run investigation by the NIS (the "old" NCIS) which didn't give the "proper" results, and then the buffoonery started. I personally...

Yep. The guy from VF-96's 1974 cruise can back this one up. After bouncing off the water of Manila Bay, he tried to claim that the centerline tank "just blew off....on its own..." That worked until they dug pieces of the centerline out of the horizontal stabs. Scratch one set of Naval Aviator...

Holy Thread Revival...!!! Much more from "Pilot X" ... now going by the screen name "Folly Pilot" on Facebook. Book also available in print and Kindle. http://4dayfollies.com/

VT-4 was still doing guns training in late '71/early '72. Because my torso height was too much for the TF-9J that VT-10 was flying, I had to do my four jet hops in borrowed T-2C's from VT-4. The first hop I did was in a T-2C with gun pods, which resulted in an early bingo, as the fuel...

As to aligning ourselves with the Air Force's regs.... you conspiracy guys in the tinfoil hats might consider that the current Navy Air Boss is an Air Force Academy grad... clicky Just sayin'

On the 1974 Ranger cruise TransPac at the start of cruise, two sailors were sunbathing on the flight deck near the round down. Idle talk turned to "how much money would it take to jump over the side" and after a certain amount was reached, and a couple of "double-dog-dares" exchanged, one of the...

F9B would be Boeing-built Hornets. -1 (Legacy... but would the "C" model be the -2? and what about the tactical "D"?... let's say the A is the -1, B would be the -1T, C would be the -2 and tactical D would be the -3) That would make the Super Hornets the -4 and -5 F9B-2Q would be the Growler...

Asking the instructors at VT-whatever is a great start, but isn't always foolproof. My own personal experience in VT-10 in the early '70s was that some instructors were very good at talking up their communities... and some took it to the other extreme. The lead guy in the E-1/E-2 department was...

Well, as Jimmy Buffett said in the song from the 1999 CD "Beach House on the Moon": "It's a permanent reminder of a temporary feeling."

There was a series of articles in the Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter 1988 and Summer 1989 issues of The Hook magazine by Barrett Tillman called "Night Hookers: A History of Carrier Night Operations" that covers a lot of the night fighter development. Give me a few days and I'll see if I can...

Here's some pics of Druts in action: Two VMF(N)-513 Douglas F3D-2 Skyknights in flight from the Korean airfield K-6 in 1955. Photo by E.S. "Mule" Holmberg (who lives in SoCal now...) Marine pilot and enlisted radar observer from VMFN-513 in Korea at K-4. Note the Mae Wests and poppy suits...

It's been taken care of via PM and e-mail. For future reference ... I have both NFO and Naval Aviator wings in .ai and/or .eps format.

^ Uncle Fester is right on with his post. The NAO/NFO program was not a "straight line," as was the Naval Aviator program. There was a two-part article (16 total pages) in the Spring 2010 and Summer 2010 issues of The Hook magazine about non-Aviator crewman in Naval aircraft, including the...

This is also being written from an iPad. Since I already had a Verizon MiFi, I didn't get the 3G version, and where I live in BFE Wyoming AT&T only has the Edge network ... and Verizon has 3G. Right now Verizon is bundling the MiFi with the iPad, so you might think of that setup, plus you can...

Victory at Sea soundtrack.

Seems like only yesterday...

The 3rd Annual AirWarriors Thursday afternoon get-together will take place at 1600 in the sports book area just outside of Gabe's Deli (basement level of the Nugget).

Here's the floor plan of the second deck (second floor -- for those who are easily offended by naval terminology used in a land-based environment...) For the Bug Roach Mixer on Friday, I'll try to secure a table in the northeast corner of the Rose Ballroom (the red circle being pointed to by...

To replace some images eaten by the recent server crash, here's the cover for the Tailhook 2010 convention program, drawn by Hank Caruso. The cover is a fold out, almost 17" wide. Rumor has it that he may have some "unfolded" copies that he'll autograph.

Part of "the job." Filthy, nasty work... but someone has to do it. It'll be my 28th...

Back in the early '70s, there were not enough fleet seats for the RIOs coming out of NAS Glynco, Ga. (the NFO Advanced Training base before it moved to Pensacola in 1974). In my class in 1972, at least 1/3rd of my class didn't get fleet seats and were sent to CAG staffs directly. They picked up...

More Plebe porn here: CNET clicky

Good article from the 3rd Marine Air Wing about recovering a Brit helo using a CH-53E. Clicky One thing I found out upon reading the article, was that the USMC has wenches (wiki link... it's the top definition...) to move their cargo around... Who knew? Hopefully the Gunny who wrote...

I was in the Reserves at VF-301 when they were making the movie. One of the NFOs in the squadron worked at Topgun in a civilian capacity and had access to VHS tapes of the "rushes." (quick edits of the filmed daily shots of the movie as it was in process). One drill weekend we gathered around a...

Two things stand out in the press release that's on Facebook "The 2009 Naval Academy graduate ..... has hopes to one day fly the F/A-18 Hornet." Nothing like getting the "kiss of death" out of the way really, really early. I guess everyone has hopes and dreams, but "needs of the Navy" will...

It's not just in the "today's" Training Command that "upside-down" selections happen. In early 1971 there was a huge pool of folks awaiting F-4 training at Miramar and Oceana after winging. Only a very few guys got RIO slots out of VT-10, and (due to some factors I never understood) usually it...

... Well... I'm a chick, too. Bummer....My wife and daughter will be sooooo surprised when I tell them. I guess a result of a gender ambiguous name... or maybe the site is total BS. I'll pick the latter. A search of a couple of folks I know turned up some really funny errors in their status...

I NEVER said that was a bad thing... Oh... and I'm using Safari as my browser... and things are back to "normal" (whatever that is...) today.

All the text is in bold... looks like everyone posts like A4s... and my eyeballs are bleeding

Yeah, the guy's wrong. Litchfield closed in 1968 and the a/c there were trucked down the turnpike to Tucson that year. At that time, the 4B tailcode was assigned to NATTC Glynco (Naval Air Technical Training Center). VT-86 didn't come along until June 1972. Before that date, all training at...