"Back in the day" stories

[Old R.O.]

You want "old school" flight schedules?
Check out what was used at Corpus Christi in WW II.

Student pilots listen to a last minute lecture before they go up on a practice hop at NATC Corpus Christi, 20 May 1943. The schedule board list who flys with who, students ups and downs and status on outlying fields.
USN photo: National Archives 80-G-41553

Aviation Cadets check the flight boards for last instructions at NATC Corpus Christi in November 1942. Schedule board lists N3N (the biplane in the background) climb and glide speed as 60Kts and cruise at 80-85 Kts and no stunting over Cabaniss Field.

Cadets at NAS Corpus Christi wearing Gosport communication systems on their leather flight helmets study the schedule board to see who flys with who and who got the ups and downs, August 1942.
USN photo

 

[Old R.O.]

You're not going to find a more "back in the day" photo than this one....

Personnel of the Fleet Air Detachment, Atlantic Fleet, pictured in front of five aircraft at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, during winter maneuvers in 1919. The event marked the first permanent provision for aviation in the fleet organization of the U.S. Navy. Operations included patrol flights by seaplanes and operations from wooden decks atop battleships. Aircraft, from left, are an R.A.E. S.E.5a, Sopwith 1 1/2 Strutter, Sopwith Camel, another S.E.5a and another Camel. USN photo

 

[helolumpy]

Don't forget the guys writing backwards on clear plexiglass in Air Ops!!! The first time we went to the computer (ISIS, I think it was called) system on the JFK, it crashed half-way through the day.
No one had a clue of what was airborne and how much gas anyone had.
Everyone came in to land and flight ops was shut down for the day. "Computers make out lives easier!" If I keep saying it, it may come true.

My worst memories were doing up NATOPS and Instrument Check paperwork on the typewritter for the CO's signature. You never had enough of the forms and the folks in the 3710 shop has "SAMPLE" across the version in the pub, so you couldn't just copy that a few times to make it through cruise....

 

[Flugelman]

Cadets at NAS Corpus Christi wearing Gosport communication systems on their leather flight helmets study the schedule board to see who flys with who and who got the ups and downs, August 1942.
USN photo

I can hear the questions to the poor Airman writing on the board now...

"Why did you put me with....?"

"I flew with him yesterday, put me with...."

"That POS airplane was down last time I flew it, I want to fly..."

And Boo Hoo Hoo ad nauseum

Some things never change...

 

[JIMC5499]

I remember our ready room on the Forrestal having a Zeinth Z-100 computer with no software. I stripped the basic compiler from the demo disk and wrote a very simple program that printed out some report that the SDO needed on the dot matrix printer. You would have thought I gave him a million dollars.

 

[MIDNJAC]

and no stunting over Cabaniss Field.

Awesome pics! This reminds me of one of my first SDO duties when I was a new primary student. We never used Cabaniss Field (though I think the multi guys did), though I didn't realize this at that point. VT-31's SDO called over to let me know that Cabaniss Field was closed, and being a good SDO I went all over the squadron looking for the ODO to tell him. When I finally found him, my "sir Cabaniss Field is closed" was met with "oh holy ****, somebody get the f***ing red phone, SDO you go inform the skipper IMMEDIATELY" and the whole ODO shack erupted into laughter. Silly me

 

[Catmando]

Awesome pics! This reminds me of one of my first SDO duties when I was a new primary student. ...............

I'm VT-1 SDO. A grizzled and sweaty T-34B Marine instructor comes up and wants to know, "Is Summerdale up or down".

I scan the grease board to see if "Summerdale" (Instructor or student, I didn't know which) was "up" flying. Not seeing his name up there on the board I replied, "No sir, he's down."

In a stressed, red faced, and very loud voice, the Marine intructor says, "Whadaya mean he's down!!??" &%&$@!... Summerdale is not a "HE"!!!!
Summerdale is a %%$#@*&! OUTLYING FIELD, you worthless &%$#@! ( + something about whales, other animals and stuff) ...
... all to the great entertainment of a packed RR, Insts. and studs alike.

Remember it like yesterday.

Summerdale linky

 

[Old R.O.]

Sopwith Camel pictured making first launch from wooden flying platform erected on the deck of USS Mississippi (BB-33) during maneuvers at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The maneuvers at Guantanamo Bay on 6 June 1919 marked the first permanent provision for aviation in the fleet organization of the U.S. Navy. Ironically, USS Mississippi's skipper was CAPT William A. Moffett, who in a few short years became the first Chief of the Bureau of Aeronautics. USN photo

Make comments about A4s, Catmando, Brownshoe, etc as appropriate...

 

[Flugelman]

Make comments about A4s, Catmando, Brownshoe, etc as appropriate...

Something about shooting, barrells, and fish.... Now how did that go???

 

[Catmando]

Something about shooting, barrells, and fish.... Now how did that go???

 

[BusyBee604]

Bitd...

Here goes-

There was no APC (Area of Positive Control). Everything was open (except restricted areas) when VFR.
Along came APC in the very early '60s. Initially above 24,000' & hereafter to be called FL240. Required positive center control w/ operating IFF.

Never heard such howls of dismay from the fleet. Over the next several years as the snarls of implementation smoothed out & all the Bitchin' Bubbas realized it was working OK & was much safer, opposition died out.
THE APC was incrementally dropped to FL180 and I recall was at FL120 when I last flew in '74. It was working very smoothly when I retired, but the ol' no flight plan VFR flights were few & far between.

*As I recall, the trigger for the APC program was a disasterous mid-air over the Grand Canyon, of a commercial Super Connie & a DC-7, in the late '50s.
BzB, the Ancient One:sleep_125

 

[rondebmar]

UAL and TWA...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1956_Grand_Canyon_mid-air_collision

 

[feddoc]

Back in the day drug tests

We had mandatory piss tests....but, only for those under the age of 36. Go figure...I knew an AQ1 who bragged about his pot plants; knew he wouldn't get tested because he was 36.

Dang shame he was a CDI in the 641 shop at AIMD.

 

[rondebmar]

We had mandatory piss tests....but, only for those under the age of 36. Go figure...I knew an AQ1 who bragged about his pot plants; knew he wouldn't get tested because he was 36.

Dang shame he was a CDI in the 641 shop at AIMD.

Damned AQ's...they're untrainable, I tell ya...UNTRAINABLE!!

Uh-h-h...(way) "back in the day", didn't have mandatory piss tests...times have changed, I guess.

 

[BlkPny]

In VT-2, flying T-28's at Whiting, on days with questionable weather and sitting around waiting for a break, one instructor, a former A-1 pilot, would set up a projector and show his home movies he made with his hand-held 8mm "Super-8" camera of the first US airstrike on Haiphong. No matter how many times he showed it, everyone was totally enthralled.

First strike into that heavily-defended hell, he's in his Spad taking movies. The guy was God to us.

The C.O. would pace around behind us and mumble "And I trust that crazy son of a bitch with my planes?!?"