SteveG75 said:Well, what's wrong with that.I thought 5 bills was the MINIMUM airspeed for breaks at the ship.
No, that wasn't it either .... Sea Story coming. I need to go squeeze some limes first ..... :icon_rast
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No, that wasn't it either .... Sea Story coming. I need to go squeeze some limes first ..... :icon_rast
Brett327 said:Meat, I KNOW you have a few more scintilating sea stories to tell (or re-tell as the case may be).
I'll start one for ya, good buddy: "There I was at Whidbey, lying pleasantly in my bed, when suddenly and without warning, I heard the sound of an errant Prowler overhead. I looked at my watch, furled my brow, and picked up the phone to call the NAS OOD..."
Brett
Brett,
I'll let you tell that one. :icon_zbee I'll retell the good ones. Besides, how many other guys do you know with class A's to their name. (who are still alive and in the Navy).
But now, for a nice VAQ-129 story:
Summer day at Whidbey. My last flight as a RAG instructor. VR1350 A entry to VR1355 (for you non-NUW bubba's, that is a 1+30 hop with 1+15 of it at 500 feet up and down the Cascades).
So, 10 minutes into the low-level (just imagine the probe bent over bit Brett):
And a poor little bird decides to try to get through my windshield.
On the down side, the hop was over and we went home.
On the up side, I did get a pretty cool coffee table out of it.
I knew I could flush you out, Meat. Hey, you're covering up a perfectly good carpet with a used windscreen. Did you get that from Nuri.
BTW, you know how else I can tell that 1350 pic is from an Intruder besides the probe? It sure doesn't look like 500 FT to me. That valley is instantly recognizable though, isn't it? Ahhh, shore duty is such a bore. :sleep_125
Brett
Hey, you're covering up a perfectly good carpet with a used windscreen. Did you get that from Nuri.BTW, you know how else I can tell that 1350 pic is from an Intruder besides the probe? It sure doesn't look like 500 FT to me. That valley is instantly recognizable though, isn't it? Ahhh, shore duty is such a bore. :sleep_125
Brett
Super18Ordie
F/A-18 Ordnanceman
Ok It was Febuary 02 and the old TR was in the North Arabian Sea launching air strikes into Afghanistan. We were in the middle of the night recovery when the Air boss gets on the 5MC and tells everyone to back away from the foul lines we got an S-3 coming in with a cockpit fire. So Im in the air/dearm area behind Cats 1 & 2 when all the sudden this S-3 comes in, catches the wire and then, mainmount collapses, and the next thing I know this jet is spewing fuel and flames everywhere. Well about 5 of us run to the AFFF hose and start playing it out while the crash alarm is going off. I see this plane captain coming running towards me making the "Fire" signal with his hands and Im thinking " I can see its on fire you idiot!!" Well all the crew got out and I ruined a perfectly good flight deck jersey trying to free the tailhook from the Arresting gear cable. 706 spent the rest of the cruise as a hanger queen and finally when we got back got craned off the ship. Next time I will regale you with the story about how Me and VF-213's Gunner almost got killed.
SteveG75 said:
Only 5 bills??? Try 600 kts at the roundown...didn't think we'd make. Went down and locked in close to at the ramp. Had to come in at 30 degrees off BRC.
Holy crap... it was a monkey and a football....but fun. Flyin' with "Nasty".
r/
G
Super18Ordie said:
I was immediately below the LA for that one. "Captain to the bridge" I hear on the 1MC. Odd, thinks I. Don't hear that often. I don't give it a nother thought. Next, through my cieling (er, overhead - whatever) I hear the approaching whine of a Hoover, the whump of it hit - and then nothing. There was supposed to be some "run-out" type noise. THEN I hear the "Fire on the flight deck" - I tried to watch the show on TV, but SITE TV had blanked the PLAT. But, after waiting a few for the passageway flurry to subside, I wandered to the ready room and watched
A4sForever said:
fc2spyguy said:
O.K. PICTURE THIS:
Last launch/recovery of the '74 cruise and at the end of the brief ... CAG comes on the TV screen (we were very hi-tech in those days -- TV !!!) and sez: "O.K. ... this has been a successful cruise and we haven't lost anyone -- let's keep it that way and everyone be safe"(!!!)
I had been mulling and gnashing in my confused mind over "something to impress" the recovery deck for the past few hours --- not a long term thing, I don't dwell on issues pertaining to "manliness", at least I don't think so --- and as I was leading a flight of three I gathered the pilot-o's and B/N's together and said:
"Is everyone up for something a little different ... ???"
I wasn't senior in the flight, but I was the lead. Plus, I was incendiary, an outlaw, an instigator, a provocateur, an agitator, a fomenter, a rascal, a rogue --- at least that's what my Fitness Report said
--- you get the picture. Inquiring minds wanted to know ... so I laid out my plan in front of their eager, beady eyes. A max-effort, warp-overdrive speed, 3-plane fan-break at the stern ..... BE SOMEBODY !!! HOOOOOAH !!!! (p.s. that's how we used to spell/pronounce it when it was "fresh")And just so you know .... I briefed it (one of the guys was the Safety - O
) and gave everyone their profile in the break. I even said "we'll go practice if we have time ....". Launch, flight, bombs, practice went normally .... and then, the recovery. I held the flight in the circle until I thought all the launch was either down or in the pattern .... and then I said to my B/N "Let's do it" ...
Down we went from 4000 feet, tightening up, getting "Blues" close and closer yet --- me trying to be as smooth as possible so they could tuck it in really tight. We got to 1000 feet and I thought "Oh, What the hell -- cruise is over" ..... and started easing it down ..... we hit the wake and the stern at about the same time --- 200' ASL, 45 degrees off BRC, and "over" 400 KIAS, and condensation vapor roaring over the wings.
I rolled smoothly at the stern as did the others mirroring me and we eased into a slight climb to pattern altitude ---3-PLANE FAN BREAK at the STERN !!!!
It was a "Zip-Lip" recovery ... but someone came up on the frequency and said ... "ALLR-R-R-R-R-R-RRRRIIGHT !!!!" I think it was one of the LSO's.
Power, boards, and I pulled @ 100 "G's" and dropped my gear .... "slightly above 250 knots". The other two guys flew their parts perfectly and we all trapped aboard, boom .... boom ..... boom!! I don't think I even added power until I touched the deck ...
. My greatest fear was fouling the deck after doing this and causing a fouled deck W/O .... but none of us did and we all recovered "smartly" . And we got the ONLY "OK" passes out of 27 aircraft in the recovey. This is enough for now, I'm tired .... plus this may be boring to you-all and I don't want to bore anyone. Call it part ONE --- Part 2 (actually somewhat more interesting) to follow ...... ??
Time to go squeeze some more limes ....... :icon_rast
SteveG75 said:
PROWLER ??? I don't discriminate -- we're ALL God's children ..... (btw ... we frequently tucked one of our VAQ-cousin birds in with us @ the ship break --- Whidbey guys stick together.
Oh yeah, I know the difference .... my "???" query was more rhetorical than anything else. BTW our A-6's didn't have TRAM ... looks like a pimple, in fact. I flew A's, B's, C's, D's, and early non-TRAM E's ..... we didn't need no steeeenkin' TRAM. (we didn't know any better, eitherSteveG75 said:
)Speaking of difference --- do the "Q" squadrons still paint the
That WAS sometimes the only way we could quickly tell the difference from the LSO platform -- when the bird was "at the start". I had my hook-spotter put his glasses on the bird to confirm a/c type early --A-6 or EA-6 --- as we had to know the difference to confirm the A/G and roll angle settings on the platform ...... but now ... ??? With no bombers ???
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