Search results

During an airshow pratice for JCOC guests (pronounced jay cocks by the troops) there was a bow to stern flyby that started with an F-4 plugged into an A-3. As they neared the ship the F-4 was to back out and an A-6 was to plug in, all at 400'. The A-6 was overrunning the basket and the driver...

It was not unusual for the Guppy (AD-5W) to "burn" over twenty gallons of oil on a four hour mission. I once landed at Nellis, checked my oil and told the Air Force guy that I needed twenty gallons of non-detergent oil. The AF was using hi-detergent oil at the time. He said "You mean twenty...

Is Article 125 of the UCMJ still in force?

Even when the ship had TACAN, the CVSs still had UHF and low freq NDB. The code words were high Trout and low trout. Using the ARA-25 UHF receiver made for a rather hectic approach since you had to switch back and forth on one radio to navigate and communicate.

Had a friend that flew AD's that was about 5'5". He said "I can see the runway ahead on takeoff or I can have full throw on the rudder. I can't do both at the same time." You really needed full throw on take off in an AD.

When I made booze runs from NORIS to El Pusso along Amber One there were still a few red beacons marking the route. Also in advanced training in AD-5s my instruments instructor had me fly up to San Antone and do a radio range orientation and approach. They were about to decommision the last two...

Guess none of these folk ever had a short-arm inspection.

Way back when the NAVCAD choir was a NAVCAD choir, they cut an LP of navy type songs. History now, I guess. Even more difficult to find would be the reel-to-reel tape that they cut one night when the instructor didn't show up. Nothing like a full men's choir singing "Violate me in the violet...

I've heard about the civies under the flight suit story also. Figured that he could impersonate a Dutch planter.

Was at the show on Friday. Guess I haven't been to any air shows in a while, so was surprised to see that it is not The Confederate Air Force anymore. It was when they pulled that B-29 out of the junk yard at China Lake in the 70's, fired it up and flew it away.

believe he was flying chase for Yeager the first time that he went supersonic. Made the transmission "you just won a steak dinner at Pancho's, pard." Referring to Pancho Barnes Happy Bottom Riding Club.

The tower at China Lake was really confused when an F-15 from Edwards AFB showed up and requested "Bumps and Circuits". He then reported that he had "lowered his undercart." Fortunately there was a VX-5 A-4 driver in the runup area that recognized Aussie speak and translated.

NAVCAD piss cutters. Preflight : no dip Earned solo bar (highly polished): one dip Earned double solo bar (never polished) : two dips.

NAVCAD monthly pay circa 1958 = $110 plus $50 flight skins. However, once you hit the boat in the T-28C your credit got real good with the Pensacola Buggy Works. They'd sell you a new '59 Chevie ragtop and the first six monthly payments were $50. After that they went through the roof, but by...

When I was going through Whiteing, an OI vaulted nimbly out of the back seat of a T-28. caught his wedding ring in the canopy cable trough, slipped, fell and left his ring and finger in the aircraft. He was out of the program. Aviators are required to have ten fingers.

In the old Guppy (AD-5W) I'd brief my right seater (airborne air controler) to tell me went he saw the ship, when he saw the ball and where it was and then I'd come off the gages. One night I didn't have my regular NFO and the new guy yelled "there's the ship and it's going under the nose!" I...

The CVSs pulled in to Kobe once a cruise back in the day. A couple of 'arf & 'arfs at the King's Arms and then dinner at the the Kobe Steak House. One of the Stoof guys would order a Chateaubriand (normally for two people) and eat the whole thing. No potato, no veggies, just beef.

Isn't this the aircraft that the Air Farce bought at the expense of the carrier force?

Coming into LAX one day in one of China Lake's U-3s headed for 25R and approach told me to maintain an airspeed above the U-3s gear speed. Since I was close in, I said negative, I'm slowing to gear lowering speed. The controller said "Roger come left 180. After a while he said come left 090...

Back in the day, the P5M outfit out of Iwakuni had a call sign of "Elk Lodge". You should hear what a Japanese air controler can to that one.

Sheriff Joe is rounding them up. 150+ according to the news. Tent City is about to get a little crowded.

MY my how things change. I watched the series and thanked what ever gods there be that I served my twenty when I did. My first cruise was in a four plane AD-5W det on a CVS. We had seven crews (pilot, airborne air controller and tech) and I was the junior pilot, an Ensign. CVSs flew around the...

I'd made a fuel stop at Navy Dallas on the way home on a syllabus cross country. I was waiting for the fuel truck while my student filed the flight plan, when a NASA T-38 pulled in beside my grubby TF-9. As the fuel trick pulled up the pilot climbed out, looked at my name tag and said, " you...

Back in the late sixties, the XO gave the EA-3 EWACs a direct order NOT to try for Vlad if we had problems on a Sea of Japan mission, no matter what. At the time the sea water temp in the SOJ was 31 degees and with a Mk 5 poopy suit, useful conscious time about fifteen minutes. The nearest US...

Once saw an AD-5W catch a wire with his hook up on a touch and go. Tail wheel hit a wire, bounced it up, he had full power and way over rotated, and the hook caught a wire. The aircraft stopped about ten feet in the air, thirty degrees nose high, then slammed into the deck. The fuselage aft of...

Oops. Should read "Dolittle's aircraft were from"

The USS Franklin was tte fifth US Navy ship to bear that name, so she could be considered to be named after a ship. The first goofy name was the USS Shangri-La. When ask Dolittle's were from, FDR said Shangri-La refering to the book Lost Horizons. Someone at Big Navy though that it would be...

Flew the NA-4E (BuNo 148613) when I was at China Lake. It was a little weird. Echo fuselage and Charlie wings. It was great for chasing BQM-34s on the range though.

Hate to be the A/G officer back aft "catching" dueing those recoverys.

No one mentioned the "step test". That put more of my classmates into PT stupid study than anything else. I do remember that when we ran the O course for time, the officer class that was also running it rode out in a bus. We double timed it from Splinterville.

Before that was Lt Will Riskit.

Durationis a big player in G tolerance. When we wrote the QF-86H NATOPS supplement to the F-86H Dash One, we limited the remote controler to 720 degrees of turn at 5 Gs, since the guy pulling them didn't feel them. I could only grunt so long

Good thing that the guy he was talking about wasn't a boatswain's mate.

Back in the EC-121 days in VQ the Navs used to actually pull a similar stunt on the new spook officer. Right after takeoff on the newbie's first flight out of DaNang, the nav would take out his .38 and put it on the nav table. When the new spook ask why, he be told that because of his clearance...

Hugh Hewett had a clip of POTUS saying it. Actually he said it twice. Pitiful.

Those all were target rich environs. However, there were several Snake Ranches on Coronado that were really happy hunting grounds. The one at 601 First comes to mind.

That's "the mat". No sweat as long as you didn't forget to lock your tail wheel when coming back from the boat. Understand the PCT is gone, too.

Runway 29 was for thr whistling shytcans, VFAW-3 owned 18 for scrambles, and we AD Drivers used "the mat". The Mex Ville is gone. First Trader's and then Mex Pac. Sad

Maybe the superintendent got a phone call "suggesting" that course of action. I know it has happened in the training command.

I don't see where any of this changes UCMJ Article 125. That's a DD and a year in the slammer.

When I bought my first tailor made suit in Hong Kong on my first cruise, the tailor said "Do you dress left or dress right?" I had no idea what he was talking about, so said "right" since I'd heard that command. (dress right - dress) Turned out to be the wrong answer.

Back in the day...... 1.5 degrees rudder trim doesn't sound like enough. A note for takeoff: never put your pack of Luckies in the arm pocket of your flight suit. By the time you get the canopy closed and are ready to light up, you'll have a pocket of loose tobacco and a bunch of empty white...

The first guy from my preflight class to buy the farm was heard to say in the Whiteing Kadet club "There ain't nothing I can't do in a T-28." He went out the next morning and proved that he couldn't complete a slow roll over his gun flight at 1000'.

The bar girls in Thieve's Alley in Yoko said "We love Crease-ee moss." We asked if they were Christians, and they said no. We asked why they loved Christmas then. "Presentos" was their reply.

When I was a shooter, one of my guys got sucked into an A-6 and survived. He made it because he'd cut the chin strap off his helmet. It had been chaffing him and the air boss yelled at anyone with a dangleing strap, so he cut it off. He was the topside PO and as he cleared the A-6 (at full...

It's a brown bagger's navy. Always has been. Always will be. BTW I once volunteered for the duty on Christmas day. Stateside we were in six section duty. That means duty New years Eve. Switch back to my old duty section. Not a chance. As for the wives, the whole V-neck T-shirt fiasco was rumored...

I remember when the blackshoes got their device. A blackshoe admiral was quoted as saying " Now that we have a specialty insigna, maybe we will develope esprit de corps like the aviators and submariners." Thought that it was the other way around.

Yep, was sitting in the car in the Maine woods listening to the radio while my father was out chopping down a Christmas tree. At five I was considered too young to be tramping around in the snow in the forest. The announcer intrupted the broadcast of my aunt's high school glee club singing...

The Captain held mast on the way back to Yankee Station after a port call at Cubi Pt. I was there with my chief since several of my guys (Bow Cats) had been written up. The Captain would say " Fighting with the shore patrol. Twenty days restriction." After a couple of these, it dawned on me that...

Back when the VT's were BTG's on foulweather days we watched Victory at Sea episodes. One day I was seated next to Ensign Kakuta of the JNSDF. No matter how many Zero's got flamed, or what the narrator's comments were, his expression never changed.