Looking for gouge? Ask your Stupid Questions about Naval Aviation here (Part 1)

[Want2flyNow]

"Drop tanks" are rarely dropped in reality. Emergencies are about the only reason. A hornet guy dropped his trying to chase down a MiG-25 just before the start of OIF-1, but that's the only tactical use of them that I've ever seen. It's not like we shit them off when they're empty like the P-51s in WWII.

True. So now I do really wonder why we don't use conformal.You have to burn jet fuel to haul around the empty drop tanks, so why not haul around conformal tanks and leave an extra two hardpoints open? I can see where you"d want the ability to drop them in an air to air combat situation. But why not do it on the legacy hornet, which is mostly used for ground attacks(i think)? You would think those extra 2 hardpoints would be extremely valuable.

 

[skidkid]

An entry in your logbook that is written in green ink is a combat mission.

Green side combat time is in red ink.

 

[Brett327]

Green side combat time is in red ink.

How do you do night? Green?

Brett

 

[squeeze]

How do you do night? Green?

Brett

In Harrier land, we log nights in the "Night Time" column and goggle time in the "Special Crew Time" column. Combat is all in red ink though.

 

[Uncle Fester]

Amazing...some of the things you'd think would be regulated and common, aren't.

While lots of things that shouldn't be, are.

Then again, we're still using the exact same logbooks that my Pops used in 1964.

 

[skidkid]

How do you do night? Green?

Brett

Night flying is just something we do. We are so damn proficient that we dont need a seperate color.

As mentioned before, there is a night time column and the SCT is used for NVG time with a slash to delineate HLL/LLL.

 

[Want2flyNow]

So what would really be nice are conformal tanks that can be jettisoned.

 

[Flash]

Amazing...some of the things you'd think would be regulated and common, aren't.

While lots of things that shouldn't be, are.

Then again, we're still using the exact same logbooks that my Pops used in 1964.

That is one thing that the USAFG has over the Navy and Marines, electronic flight logs. I have know 2 or 3 guys to lose their flight logs and had a bear of a time reconstructing them.

But with NMCI being the customer friendly system it is, maybe we should be thankful that we have actual books.

 

[Gatordev]

Night flying is just something we do. We are so damn proficient that we dont need a seperate color.

As mentioned before, there is a night time column and the SCT is used for NVG time with a slash to delineate HLL/LLL.

That make a lot more sense and probably easier to read. Our NVG time would go in the landings column, w/ various flavors for HLL/LLL (pencil and blue)

 

[HeyJoe]

So what would really be nice are conformal tanks that can be jettisoned.

Highly improbable due to their location. Not to say it couldn't be done, but being so close to fuselage, the separation challenge would be very difficult across the envelope. They aren't as simple to mount as tanks so you might be creating a maintainer nightmare as well.

 

[skidkid]

I have know 2 or 3 guys to lose their flight logs and had a bear of a time reconstructing them.

I keep the one that is full at home and keep photocopies of the current one, not high tech or sexy but it should work when and if the need arises.

 

[Want2flyNow]

The Tomcats tanks underthe intakes could be dropped correct? Also, why couldn't weapons hardpoint be placed their?

 

[HeyJoe]

The Tomcats tanks underthe intakes could be dropped correct? Also, why couldn't weapons hardpoint be placed their?

It had eight weapons hardpoints (actually 10 but only 8 could be used at a time) and since tanks were ALWAYS carried operationally, that's where they were designed to go so not need to make it a dual purpose mounting location. Remember, every hardpoint has to go through extensive testing with every stores configuration including dropping whatever is mounted there and with all adjacent stores configuration. It gets pretty pricey (note: Super Hornet has so many possible configurations and mix of stores that it entered service before they were all cleared for use because of timing and funding available).

 

[Want2flyNow]

How many jamming pods is the growler to carry? looking at this picture(see below) it looks like a total of 5, which would leave 2 hardpoints open for self defense weapons. If conformal tanks could be added, the drop tanks could be taken off freeing up an extra two harpoints for some sparrows or something(if the airframe could handle it). The growler is not going to be able to drop its jamming pods, so I wonder if the crew would rather have an extra two missles, with a little exrtra weight added to an already heavily weighted plane, as opposed to only two.


http://www.arinc.com/images/pr_growler_large.jpg

 

[Brett327]

That make a lot more sense and probably easier to read. Our NVG time would go in the landings column, w/ various flavors for HLL/LLL (pencil and blue)

The lack of STAN is interesting. We don't track HLL vs LLL. We put the NVG time in an unused column (SCT for pilots, FPT for ECMOs). Night=red, combat=green, blah, blah, blah.

Brett