• Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?

    Go here:

    Edit Account Details and Profile

СН-46 in SEALs training

ChuckMK23

FERS and TSP contributor!
pilot
Should there be some sort of joint program office (JPO) for aviation maintenance and safety that takes these decisions out of the hands of each service branch to centralize, balance, and standardize across all branches?
That would be "The Wisdom of NAVAIR" thread.... lol
 

AllAmerican75

FUBIJAR
None
Contributor
Indeed - ST 8 and USCG dudes - who were billeted incognito aboard the USNS Joshua Humphreys - nothing to do with opsec - but rather these guys were living large aboard a USNS ship with civ mariners - private staterooms for all, food and entertainment that exceeded any USS vessel. A great deal for them - Wake up, PT, eat, shoot guns, clean guns, get a couple of helos to fly them to some broken down unsuspecting Philippine flagged merchant ship full of cattle, go back to USNS, and retire to steaks and beer. Rinse. Repeat.

Man, those SPECWAR bubbas have some of the best boondoggles.
 

Max the Mad Russian

Hands off Ukraine! Feet too
Rinse. Repeat.

Pure envy:) Boarding parties of Russian Navy are Marines (small bunch within the Navy, actually infantry background with almost no special boarding training) cramped in the close quarters of frigates, and when it comes to frigates, it seems that the main design rule is to stick with the old Brits practice to strictly avoid any A/C and ventilation in living/staterooms to breath purely with some natural gas issued by your roommates:(

Russian CG differs, their boarding parties larger and better trained, though preferring to board from the small craft or ship alongside instead of fast-roping from helos. Curious thing is that the officers and men with radio, crypto and intel MOSs are not allowed to participate in the parties due to the fear that boarded crew prevail and so the "holder of a sensitive info" may become a prisoner.

the H-46 had a fairly advanced digital AFCS for its time that provided excellent stability while allowing the pilot to fly dynamically

Another case of envy. What Soviet NavAir always lacked, and still, is the roomy naval tactical transport helo. All Ka-27/32 family is so moderate in capacity that just about four Marines could be brought to the fast rope at a time. Dunno, maybe nowadays they are trained better but it seems doubtful. Coasties with their habits to board either from the RHIBs via pilot's ladder or from the cutter herself alongside by crazily jumping from own superstructure to a target main deck over water, usually getting bridge and main engine console under control in minutes, wasting no time for chatter with the crew, bouncing them off and starting to check the faces and documents just after the vessel is dead in water and idle. They say the police SWAT teams are more delicate than those coasties.
 
Last edited:

robav8r

Well-Known Member
None
Contributor
Embassy log run into Tel-Aviv fully loaded with all the supplies for Thanksgiving Dinner and we're about 1/3 of the way there. I'm the HAC. Crew Chief shouts those magic words: "Oh Shit!"...I look in the little dash mirror and oil is gushing out of the right engine bay. Like...rivers/buckets of oil. WTF!? Crewman quickly drops the cover and splash...oil everywhere. I'm like how much have we lost? He's like, "All of it!" We were safely in the single engine envelope and had a big runway about 10 miles ahead. So before we leaked the whatever was left and burned the engine up we elected to shut it down and perform a run on landing. I declared the emergency, did the landing, copilot is blocking the pedals and we taxi into the line. When all of a sudden:

"Oh Shit!"
"Now what?"
"We got smoke, we're on fire!"
"HOw the F@#K are we on fire?!"
"It's the brakes!"
Thanks co-pilot.

So we got the bird stopped, got the brake fire out (it extinguished by itself really), almost no damage...just hot brakes and scorched rims. Tires looked okay. And then we see the two trucks in front of us rolling in hot and out jump the Israelis all with machine guns and running at us. I'm like, "They know we're American right?" Turns out they did as they set up a defensive perimeter around the bird and I'm like, "They must really like turkey." Anyway, we spent about 6 hours on deck as they unloaded our bird. Our other Aircraft finished up the the log run and brought some tools so we could figure out what was up. Turned out that AMD sent us an engine that only had about 1/4 of the bolts holding the accessory drive on the engine torqued down. We could literally spin most of the bolts by hand. I have no idea how it made it through the FCF much less stay on the engine.

We were quite the celebrities while we were there. A whole bunch of Israeli Army came to chat us up, several female types (all gorgeous), and took pictures with us...I traded my US flag patch with a hot blonde for her Israel flag patch. Tightened up all the crap we could, topped off the oil, got a one time authorization to fly the bird back which was uneventful, and that was that.
This story right here is why people sign up to be in military aviation.
 

wink

War Hoover NFO.
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
This story right here is why people sign up to be in military aviation.
Where did I go wrong?

-Winter NORPAC divert to Adak with two other War Hoovers, an A-6 and KA-6. Over 500 miles, tanking and below min landings....No women. No guns.
-Lead of a two ship from Singapore to Cubi. Engine failure on take off at max gross weight. On fire. Nose gear snaps into place at 200 feet on field arrestment....No girls. No guns
-Full electrical failure off Lemoore on way back to Big E. Return to Lemoore for the weekend. No girls. No machine guns.
-Declared emergency in an MD-80...No women to greet. No cool guns.
-Emergency return to NZY with partial engine failure in Flying Club C-172.... No women. No guns.

What was the point of it all!!!
 

HAL Pilot

Well-Known Member
None
Contributor
Where did I go wrong?

-Winter NORPAC divert to Adak with two other War Hoovers, an A-6 and KA-6. Over 500 miles, tanking and below min landings....No women. No guns.
-Lead of a two ship from Singapore to Cubi. Engine failure on take off at max gross weight. On fire. Nose gear snaps into place at 200 feet on field arrestment....No girls. No guns
-Full electrical failure off Lemoore on way back to Big E. Return to Lemoore for the weekend. No girls. No machine guns.
-Declared emergency in an MD-80...No women to greet. No cool guns.
-Emergency return to NZY with partial engine failure in Flying Club C-172.... No women. No guns.

What was the point of it all!!!

Yup, without the girls and guns it's just another day, another dollar.
 

robav8r

Well-Known Member
None
Contributor
Where did I go wrong?

-Winter NORPAC divert to Adak with two other War Hoovers, an A-6 and KA-6. Over 500 miles, tanking and below min landings....No women. No guns.
-Lead of a two ship from Singapore to Cubi. Engine failure on take off at max gross weight. On fire. Nose gear snaps into place at 200 feet on field arrestment....No girls. No guns
-Full electrical failure off Lemoore on way back to Big E. Return to Lemoore for the weekend. No girls. No machine guns.
-Declared emergency in an MD-80...No women to greet. No cool guns.
-Emergency return to NZY with partial engine failure in Flying Club C-172.... No women. No guns.

What was the point of it all!!!
Sam’s story had hot Israeli chicks. Yours did not. Pretty simple really . . .
 
Top