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Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 23 Sep 2008 Returning to NAS Miramar

Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 22 Sep 2008 VF-301 F-4S tanks from a VAK-308 KA-3B while a VFP-306 RF-8G flies formation. NAS Fallon range, 1983.

Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 21 Sep 2008 VF-301 F-14A and VC-13 TA-4J returning to NAS Miramar

Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 20 Sep 2008

Holdbacks From back in the day of one-time use holdbacks. From left: E-2, F-4 (unused), F-4 (used... this part stayed in the aircraft), E-1B (used).

The thing coming straight back and hooking into the deck is the holdback bar. It was articulated in the middle and the deck crew put the frangible holdback fitting into the end of it and then hooked it into a slot that was in a door that came out of the keel area between the engines. The cables...

Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 18 Sep 2008 VF-21 F-4J in tension on Ranger, 1974

Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 17 Sep 2008 VF-21 F-4J 1973

Point of order... the F-4's 600-gallon centerline only held 4K of fuel (poor memory on my part) ... Going into burner in the F-4 could run you out of gas in a hurry. I remember someone saying that the two J79s in burner could drain a full bag of gas (17K or so) in less than 15 minutes...

Max fuel on the ball was 5.1 (5,100 pounds of JP-5). MRT was more than enough to power out of a descent. Of course, at night sometimes the pilot wanted to make sure that the aircraft had a positive rate of climb, and would select burner. The F-4J carried 13.3 internal and another 5.0 in the...

Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 16 Sep 2008 Waveoff.... fouled deck! VF-154 F-4J ... USS Ranger (CVA-61) ... 1974

Barely... had to use glass negatives and flash powder... shot photos alongside Mathew Brady... ... actually... a Petri 7S 35mm on the '73 cruise which was replaced by an Olympus OM-1 on the '74 cruise. Also shot some medium format (120) photos with a Richoh twin-lens reflex. After 1977 used...

No clue...

Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 15 Sep 2008 Back again after a week at Tailhook '08 and a week of "other stuff." VF-154's CAG bird F-4J on board USS Ranger in mid-Pacific, October 1974. CAG Massey had just made his 1,000th trap, and the aircraft was painted as ModEx 1000 for the CVW-2...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KB-29

Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 28 Aug 2008 VF-154 F-4J after trapping on board USS Ranger (CVA-61), circa 1974

Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 27 Aug 2008 San Clemente sunline

Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 26 Aug 2008 VF-301 transitioned from the F-4S to the F-14A in October 1984. The last Phantoms were flown out in late September, and the first Tomcats showed up in late October. For training in the Tomcat, the squadron was divided in two, with the first group...

Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 25 Aug 2008 In the vertical, Dec 1986

Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 24 Aug 2008 Tomcats in the break at NAS Miramar, August 1985.

Kinda the same thing... Here's a guy who changed freeway signs to make them better... http://www.knbc.com/news/1448667/detail.html

Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 23 Aug 2008 VAQ-309 EA-6A and VF-301 F-14A, W-291 returning to Miramar, Aug 1985.

Most of my slides of other aircraft are in the archives at Tailhook HQ in San Diego... Just wait until November when I get back there on a visit... the scanner will be blazing!

Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 22 Aug 2008 Tomcats approaching the Fallon initial for the break, summer 1987

Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 21 Aug 2008 VMFA-531 F/A-18A clears the coast near Del Mar on a Seawolf departure from NAS Miramar into W-291, 22 February 1986. The squadron had just transitioned to the Hornet. Note the lack of any pylons or other drag inducers on the a/c.

This was in the early days of the mod... and we only had three or four of them for the whole 12-plane squadron. Plus, the aircraft we had were all 158xxx and very early 159xxx BuNo aircraft... some of them were the original VF-1 and VF-2 aircraft that were delivered in 1972/73. We still had the...

Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 20 Aug 2008 Tomcat on a VR route over the eastern California desert, circa 1986.

Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 19 Aug 2008 VF-301 F-14A on a section instrument approach to NAS Miramar.

Like RADM Freddie "Fielday" Fellows at Miramar (ComFitAEWWingPac) in the late '70s. He was singlehandedly responsible for a huge exodus of talent at that time. Read Monroe Smith's "Roger Ball" for more info (except that his name was changed in the book to something else). At least he didn't get...

Absolutely correct... the squadron didn't get A-7Es until September of that year. +1 for eagle eyes... however, it wasn't a CQ det... it was AcDuTra (Active Duty for Training), and the air wing spent two weeks floating in the fog on board Ranger underway in W-291. Came in earlier that expected...

Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 18 Aug 2008 VA-304 A-7E traps on board USS Ranger (CV-61) during the January 1986 CVWR-30 AcDuTra det.

Interesting thread from over at the Baseops forum from our friends in light blue: http://www.flyingsquadron.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=13965 I don't think the Navy has had anyone who compares to this ^&%#*^$|.

After leaving active duty in 1977, flew in the Reserves for 10 years. All but one of the 8 civilian jobs since 1977 were/are aviation-related (technical writer and magazine editing/graphic design).

Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 17 Aug 2008 VF-301 showbird (ND 101) banks away on a flight in W-291. Circa 1986.

Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 16 Aug 2008 Into the break at Fallon at dusk, CVWR-30 1987 det.

Returning to NAS Miramar, a flight of VF-301 F-14A Tomcats overfly NAS North Island and the city of San Diego, circa 1986.

Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 14 Aug 2008 Tomcat on a VR route somewhere in southeast California.

Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 13 Aug 2008 VAQ-130 Det 4 EKA-3B prepares to pass fuel to a VF-21 F-4J. SoCal OpArea, spring 1974.

We were shore-based 99.9% of the time. We only hung centerlines on our F-4s when on det, and I'm not sure we even had tanks for the F-14s in the three years that I flew (in) them. The fleet F-14 squadrons usually only hung them when they were on the boat, if I remember correctly. Having never...

Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 12 Aug 2008 F-14A, Pacific Ocean near San Diego, c. 1985

Trolling for more negative rep points, are we?

Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 11 Aug 2008 VF-301 F-4S with live AIM-7E and AIM-9 on the way to the Pacific Missile Range to engage the wiley BGM-34 drone, circa 1981.

Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 10 Aug 2008 VF-301 F-14As climb-out from NAS Fallon on the return to NAS Miramar after the CVWR-30 1987 summer det.

Yes. Hydraulic catapults. Also, some of the first Essex class (CV-9 and up) were built with a catapult on the hangar deck They were hardly ever used, and were taken out later.

The F2H-2P was assigned to VC-61, which was established on 20 Jan 1949. it became VFP-61, then VCP-63 and finally VFP-63 on 1 Jul 1961 operating the F8U-1P (photo version of the F8U Crusader). The "Eyes of the Fleet" was Disestablished on 30 Jun 1982 at which time it was operating the RF-8G on...

The original post has been edited to remove a statement that "Andy Cowan" was in the aircraft that skids on the deck and crashes into the island. It then went on to give a "history" of Andy that said that he had shot down 4.5 Japanese aircraft and a lot of other things that since have been...

Actually, VF-301 did it first on the West Coast -- in 1974 when they got their Phantoms. VF-21 did not wrap it around until mid-1975, when Devil Houston took over the squadron.

Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 9 Aug 2008 Back when Navy aircraft had color. VF-301 F-4N CAG bird climbs out from Miramar, 1978. ComCVWR-30 at the time was Riley Mixson, who later made flag rank and a name for himself in Desert Storm.

Salina = Kansas Salinas = California

Old R.O. Picture of the Day for 8 Aug 2008 Sunset on the Phantom. VF-301 F-4S over the Pacific Ocean in W-291 west of San Diego in 1984, just before the squadron transitioned to the F-14A Tomcat.