Longest Flight?

[Redux]

17 hours, dollar 18's not a fair comparison, we even had bunk beds. Lajes to KNSF, laden with gallons of George The Crook goodies. You guys have NO IDEA of how much junk can fit inside of access panels in the wings, 20 man life rafts, Gibson Girls ect. http://www.vpnavy.com/vp64_1979.html

 

[sevenhelmet]

7.0 CTO - TOJ
7.0 TOJ - KHT

F-14 ferry flights from the Grumman factory on Long Island to Torrejón, Madrid Spain; and then to Khatami Air Base, Esfahan, Iran.

If they're still flying, I'll be waiting for 'em...

 

[Single Seat]

How many times did you have to tank on that flight?

4 times in country, got gas on the ground in Baghram (when the tankers ran out), hit the tanker again on the way out of country, then again over the ship when the recovery got backed up.

There was a lot of running the seat up and down, and inflating the G suit to keep blood moving. That is when we weren't talking to dudes on the ground, in the basket, etc.

Oh yeah, piddle packs are your friends. So is Immodium!!!

 

[PropStop]

While not single piloted... 13.2. I don't even remember what we were doing. of course, i guess it doesn't count because i got up, used the head, had some coffee, hit the rack for an hour or so...

 

[Pugs]

5 June 99 - scheduled for a triple cycle KEZ event out of Aviano and the relief went down so ended up with a 9.2. Lost track of trips to the tankers.

Even with g-suit pumping and everything else wasn't sure I was going to be able to get out of the seat at the end.

 

[Flash]

10.4 actually in the air from Rota, Spain to Andrews AFB, about 12 actually strapped in the jet. It was a Prowler, even though I did a few longer ones in P-3's they don't count when you can get up and walk around.

The guy who were the champs though were the VMAQ guys out of PSAB during OIF. They were doing 7-10 hour flights nightly. Since the two Navy squadrons that were supposed to be out of Turkey weren't flying, mine included, they took the whole load. The average for ECMO's was about 180 and for pilots about 110-120 for the 3 weeks at the start of the war. Yes, you read that right, three weeks.

 

[Slammer2]

Stupid question: When you're making a long transit, can you guys shoot the shit between wingmen or the flight? Or do you have to keep the radios quiet and focus on other stuff?

 

[Pags]

I'd have to look, but I think I have a 8+hr vertrep and maybe a 9ish in the gulf doing PMC.

 

[A4sForever]

Stupid question: When you're making a long transit, can you guys shoot the shit between wingmen or the flight? Or do you have to keep the radios quiet and focus on other stuff?

Don't know what it's like today in a Navy cockpit -- but "then" in the NAV and "always" in civie-street when flying the line -- it's a decided YEA-AS!!!

We'd use "squadron common" or "quat-3" ... 333.3 in the NAV

We'd use "airline common" ... 123.4 in the airlines

 

[Pugs]

Stupid question: When you're making a long transit, can you guys shoot the shit between wingmen or the flight? Or do you have to keep the radios quiet and focus on other stuff?

Played trivial pursuit once over the boom freq with the tanker crew on a translant.

 

[MasterBates]

We used to BS on Winchester or Springfield, until the SWO-daddies figured it out. Then we (the LAMPS clowns in the screen) came up with our own "card of the day" for inter-helo comms that we did not want "The Man" to hear.

 

[HokiePilot]

Springfield? 303.0 also?
I have also used stupid cheerleader 246.9

 

[MasterBates]

Springfield 300.6 (30-06)

 

[FlyinSpy]

9.5, KNSF-PAED (Andrews-Elmendorf AFB). Mandatory gear for long flights in the Prowler is an Ipod with a Belkin FM transmitter. By sitting the Belkin on the scanner and tuning it, you can couple enough energy directly into the scanner to get good audio for everyone who selects it on the ICS.

Even with music, beef jerky, Gatorade, Powerbars, Trivial Pursuit, Golf Digest, and a good paperback, it's still a helluva long trip....

Had a 7.5 once triple-cycling over Fallujah - we were listening to the book-on-tape "No True Glory", which is about the Battle Of Fallujah. Kind of ironic to be watching the fighting below while listening to the book...

 

[exhelodrvr]

Of course, there are always the discussions about porn movies that are done on "ICS".