Speaking of landing at the wrong airport: Oceanside-bound aircraft have accidentally landed at Pendleton a few times. Imperial County birds have occasionally, erroneously landed at El Centro. However, KNSE T-6s mistakenly land at KNDZ every Sunday night from 1800-2200.
Never landed on the wrong boat or the wrong airport..... but I can't believe the number of times I tried.
I tried to land at Briggs instead of KELP once. That was fun. Instruments saved my ass (wow, that ain't right- I'm not pointed where I thought I was) I wonder why he didn't elect to go around when he realized he didn't have as much runway as he was expecting...
I can understand mistaking one little field for another, esp at night, but this was day, yes? None of the three (?) guys in the cockpit looked outside on final and said "Wait...MacDill is one short runway and a bunch of bugsmashers?" Stories like this, there's always some extra puzzle piece. I like to imagine some heartily disliked LtCol had the controls, and the JO copilot thought, "He really thinks that's MacDill he's lining up on...You know what? Fuck it...imma let that asshole do it. He signed for the plane."
Poor pilot is going to loose his wings over this, Might as well go all out and say the General gave him a "No Balls" to do it.
Almost bit off on Eglin when we were supposed to go to Hurlburt a few days ago. Got cleared for the visual about 15 miles out when we thought we had the field in sight...as the needles kept swinging we did the "uhhh....something ain't right" look across the console and decided to reevaluate. Eglin = much bigger than H Burt.... which makes it a lot easier to see the wrong airport from 15-20 miles out. Whoops.
VMO's picture shows why this seems a little more odd than the normal "oops, wrong airport" thing. Normally you bite off on the wrong runway because the two airports are oriented next to one another (Whiting is a perfect example). I've bit off on Hill AFB when I was trying to go into SLC thanks to the sunlight, but we (ie, not me) caught it in time. What's odd about this is that TPF is in line with MacDill, and due to where TPA is located (to the north of both airports), MacDill lands on runway 04 98% of the time, so you'd have to fly over MacDill to get to TPF.
Suffered a 'could have been' Oops, wrong carrier, comin home to RANGER in '66. Pulling off target at Mu Ghia Pass (Unc 'Ho's Trail), suffered a severe 2-ft tear in the bottom of the stbd (wet) wing. [photos]. In a near instant the 1600# remaining in the wing vaporized and was gone. Climbing with only a full 1600# fuselage tank remaining, w/ wingie... headed poste haste for "feet wet". Contacted the duty KA-3 Whale, arrangjng for some AR headin' home. Rdvz'd w/tanker & plugged no problems. About 90 miles out, contactcd 'Gray Eagle, advised of situation. They replied launching aircraft, will have ready deck upon arrival, expect straight-in. Continued in plugged all the way (we called that "being towed"), sipping just enough gas to keep the fuselage tank full (overflow would simply flow into the wing tag & be lost...possible fire hazard we continued
Continued in toward the ship, unplugged and called visual... in-sight at 10 miles. Ship called ready deck, call 5 miles with gear, tacan 'appearing' to point straight ahead. About 5 miles, I gasped & called your landing area is filled wit parked aircraft! Eagle calmly replied, check 11 o'clock you're heading for War Chief! A quick adjustment to port to the new centerline, called ball w/ gear & trapped without further incident (with fuel pouring out of the wing hole)! Seems the relieving carrier had arrived & before the relieved ship departed, CARDIV decided to have a 3-carrier close line abreast formation for a photo op during our cycle...no one notified the Airwing (CVAs on Yankee Station together normally maintained 50 miles minimum separation)! Just 'nother fun day w/ the TG Yacht Club... *Just amazing the lickin' the 'li'l Scooter' could sustain and keep on tickin' BzB
As a brand new Ensign, I was shooting my first ever night ADF approach into NORIS. When I broke out, I glanced to the right and there at one o'clock was a lighted runway. Rechecked the #1 needle and the runway should have been directly ahead. Looked again and there was a runway staight ahead. As I got closer I recognized IT as NORIS 29, and landed. The first runway was the seadrome in South Bay. Now the gutless Guppy may have looked like it had a bathtub on the belly, but believe me they don't float.
Does even better picking up WWVA (Wheeling, West by god Virginia) late a night, no matter where you were.
I remember listening as a kid (in New England), to WWVA Wheeling, WV, WCKY Cincinnati OH & b'golly W??? Del Rio TX. Hee haw, s*#t kickers all. You could pick up their signal out to Jupiter, but only at night! WWVA DJs pitched far out items such as "Folks, getchure free genuiiine personally autographed pitchure of Christ on the Cross!" (Back in the pre- 'PC' era) KBay toys with our emotions ..., fer the yungun's, ADF - Automatic Direction Finder: A simple low-frequency beacon, mostly used receiver (in my era) ARN-6 Had a little hand crank for tuning,,,so was called "coffee grinder". That was all we had for Inst. flight, X/C etc. in flight training. Hit the fleet in '58 at the same time as the new whiz bang TACAN! Only drawback, couldn't listen to AM radio like in the ARN-6, but much easier to navigate. BzB
KBay toys with your emotions, yes...but he also teaches the yunguns how to navigate with an ADF. Yes, the -57 still has ADF, and we still use it. (As funny as it sounds, the -57 has one of the most pimped-out avi suites in the Navy)
Don't worry, Salty Ones, some of us still use ADF operationally... It's the only way to find sonobuoys at night.
