The Great, Constantly Changing Picture Gallery...part DEUX

Took this in NY during a flight from Canada back to Pensacola~

Yes! He's even playing a banjo!

That's not any banjo. That's THE banjo on the banks of the Cahulawassee river (or chattooga/ tallulah gorge)

. The venerable 'badass' pfantum could flash by anything airborne (except the KA-3/6/7, KC-10/130/135 et al.)!




well, flight planning was easy...... 3000 pph/side as i recall.

Yes indeed.

Okay good- I got worried that I was studying the wrong thing...

You should have plenty of time to read the ever enlightening ACM FTI.......I believe nearly every T-45 on the earth is sitting on the ramp at Oceana right now

Yeah man, those guys had to chase the ship half way up the coast. What a boondoggle.

Sounds like I need to do some surfing.

re:"Thank God the Navy gave me an RO who could add and subtract,"

yeah, but the math got a lot tougher for the RIO with the early tomcat software.
remember "bogey bearing +/- bogey reciprical = target aspect" ?

i think the stick even then the stick didn't have to do all that math. you just looked at the target bar and heading scale on the
VDI.

Trying to insert a team on the bridge wing of this monster. For a huge ship, it was sure rocking and rolling:

The hoist cam went supernova on me, but here is the image capture I managed to salvage from my last MEDEVAC a few years back~

MEDEVAC of a passenger (nurse) that was drowned and recessitated twice in a pool. The Coral Princess took a huge wave off-shore of Bodega bay, which caused a huge wall of water to flop over her in the pool. This was during a nursing convention. We took her into Santa Rosa Hospital, and I think she was fine. I have press release somewhere. 1st SAR as a Dolphin Aircraft Commander. LCDR Eric Smith was the copilot (him to me: maybe we should put the wheels down, guy!).

06/28/2012
ACADEMY SMOKE SCREEN
A helicopter drops water on the wildfire burning in Waldo Canyon on the U.S. Air Force Academy outside of Colorado Springs, Colo., June 27, 2012. The fires, which have burned more than 15,000 acres, began spreading to the southwestern corner of the academy, causing base officials to evacuate residents. Officials estimated that the fire had spread to about 10 acres of land belonging to the Academy. U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Jeremy Lock


06/27/2012
FIGHTING FIRES
A C-130 aircraft equipped with a modular firefighting system drops retardant on a section of the Waldo Canyon fire near Colorado Springs, Colo., June 26, 2012. Four of these aircraft, assigned to the Air Force's 302nd and 153rd airlift wings, are helping civil authorities combat the fire. The 302nd Airlift Wing is based on Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., and the 153rd Airlift Wing is part of the Wyoming Air National Guard. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Thomas Doscher


Scooping up water
A helicopter hoists water from the Air Force Academy water treatment plant to dump on the Waldo Canyon fire June 28, 2012. The Waldo Canyon fire has destroyed over 18,000 acres in the Colorado Springs, Colo., area. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Christopher Boitz/Released)

OMG, floating in the gulf, awaiting the rescue helo, I looked up and that's exactly what my SAR cover looked like. Awesome & comforting, but I was hoping not to become a witness to the most spectacular mid-air in Naval history!

Meh...worked out OK! BzB

Would you please send me another CD of the radio transmissions that day? I loaned out the one you'd sent me and it’s never been returned.

^^ I don't suppose that CD could ever be made public/semi-private somewhere online for the rest of us? Us young ones need some inspiration from time to time, and a little history couldn't hurt.

Up to BzB. I'll make it happen if he says it's okay.

I don't see any reason why not. It's unclas, was tape recorded on RESCAP frequency by the controlling E-2, as was standard on Alpha strikes. The E-2 crew presented me a reel tape copy of the whole rescue several days later, which I had copied onto a CD a few years ago. I don't have a copy CD here at present, but my 'compusmart' Son has the master & I'll arrange for him to burn a few copies as soon as I can. It's fairly clear for UHF, in fact portions from the tape of the strike & helo rescue, were used in the soundtrack of the one-hour Military Channel documentary on the A-4 in Vietnam, titled "Huggin' The Deck", about 10 years ago, great show!

I wouldn't have a clue on how to put it on the net? Perhaps there's a way that a link to the sound track could be installed (embedded?) in the info page of my AW profile? Then any AW member could stop by & listen ('bout 20 min. audio).

Will let you and Blackshoe know when copies are available.
BzB

Sir,

Is your story here on AW somewhere? I am sure it would make a great read. I just finished The Second Luckiest Pilot... fascinating and well written book.

see bzb's homepage,

http://navy.togetherweserved.com/us...ps?cmd=ShadowBoxProfile&type=Person&ID=379088

It is, but I'm gonna have to do a search to find it... is back a couple of years. It used to be available in an AW section called BLOGS, but that went away in the last AW major update last year. I'll PM to you when I locate it.
BzB

Bingo...link is on Military Aviation in General > thread: "There I was" Stories from a Vietnam era A-4 Driver > post: #50 Apr. 18 2009, then click on link...then open on bottom to load story. It's an interesting thread if you haven't seen it, with a few other stories as well!
BzB