Old S-2 & S-3 drivers still around??

[HAL Pilot]

You are not old enough to remember the boot shaking fear inspired by the awesome power of the Bravo? Buddy store my ass. The mighty War Hoover could locate the enemy fleet with an array of sensors and bring to bear on the sinister Japs Harpoon, Maverick (IR and laser), Nukes, 5 inch Rockets, bombs, Rockeye, mines, torpedo and could control the SLAM/ER (I think launch was a future option).

If that doesn't make your nipples hard you ain't alive. Or maybe you just fly Hornets, I dunno .

Yeah but....their boat kill during Desert Storm was from a buddy store...

 

[HooverPilot]

Not quite that high, but better then Fire Birds. But really, aren't we all waiting for a really good S-3 movie? Kind of a Flight of the Intruder meets Das Boot and Hunt for the Red October.

A movie with a Viking in it? Airport '77. The Viking crew saves the day when they find the airliner!

 

[Griz882]

Is one of the features of whisper mode crashing on a wall and leaving behind half of your super secret toy?

I can’t help it if the pilot forgot to take it out of crash mode.

 

[Jim123]

You are not old enough to remember the boot shaking fear inspired by the awesome power of the Bravo? Buddy store my ass. The mighty War Hoover could locate the enemy fleet with an array of sensors and bring to bear on the sinister Japs Harpoon, Maverick (IR and laser), Nukes, 5 inch Rockets, bombs, Rockeye, mines, torpedo and could control the SLAM/ER (I think launch was a future option).

If that doesn't make your nipples hard you ain't alive. Or maybe you just fly Hornets, I dunno .

There could be an over-the-shoulder loft bombing maneuver scene with a nuke... we'd have to screen that one with test audiences full of millenials.

 

[wink]

Yeah but....their boat kill during Desert Storm was from a buddy store...

True enough. The pilot was in my Reserve squadron, a Delta pilot. Not as dumb or embarrassing as it sounds. As he told it, after refueling a package they proceeded on a SSC mission. They located a small boat making way for a friendly. Alpha Sierra didn't have any assets to vector that way. After confirming all the ROE they decided not to let it close any further. The idea was to disable it until someone with a real weapon could sink it. As it was, it was a shack, and the boat sunk in time. Now really, we bombed off the windshield wiper bolt and he dropped a store for which there was no data. No telling the aero on that thing. Yet he scored a direct hit. I'd say good on him. Problem was, the buddy store was sorely missed. Big picture and all. Above average for aggressiveness and 30 degree dive bombing, below average for strategic awareness. Bottom line, O-3 aviators thought it was cool. O-5 and above, not so much.

 

[Griz882]

True enough. The pilot was in my Reserve squadron, a Delta pilot. Not as dumb or embarrassing as it sounds. As he told it, after refueling a package they proceeded on a SSC mission. They located a small boat making way for a friendly. Alpha Sierra didn't have any assets to vector that way. After confirming all the ROE they decided not to let it close any further. The idea was to disable it until someone with a real weapon could sink it. As it was, it was a shack, and the boat sunk in time. Now really, we bombed off the windshield wiper bolt and he dropped a store for which there was no data. No telling the aero on that thing. Yet he scored a direct hit. I'd say good on him. Problem was, the buddy store was sorely missed. Big picture and all. Above average for aggressiveness and 30 degree dive bombing, below average for strategic awareness. Bottom line, O-3 aviators thought it was cool. O-5 and above, not so much.

My dad called that the T.L.A.R. aiming method...”That Looks About Right.”

 

[xmid]

True enough. The pilot was in my Reserve squadron, a Delta pilot. Not as dumb or embarrassing as it sounds. As he told it, after refueling a package they proceeded on a SSC mission. They located a small boat making way for a friendly. Alpha Sierra didn't have any assets to vector that way. After confirming all the ROE they decided not to let it close any further. The idea was to disable it until someone with a real weapon could sink it. As it was, it was a shack, and the boat sunk in time. Now really, we bombed off the windshield wiper bolt and he dropped a store for which there was no data. No telling the aero on that thing. Yet he scored a direct hit. I'd say good on him. Problem was, the buddy store was sorely missed. Big picture and all. Above average for aggressiveness and 30 degree dive bombing, below average for strategic awareness. Bottom line, O-3 aviators thought it was cool. O-5 and above, not so much.

Was that the NFO Curt Lyter? LCDR Bruce "Baja" Bole (Ret. Capt) I believe was the pilot. He was my next door neighbor behind the parade field at USNA in the late 90's and then my CO at NAPS in 2002-2003. He told the story shortly before NAPS graduation. He said they were totally surprised that they hit it. If I remember correctly CAG wanted to string him up by the balls until the Admiral swooped in, thinking it was the greatest piece of flying he'd ever heard of.

 

[Jim123]

I get it about the buddy store being a theater asset and how tanking is a force multiplier; I got that when I first heard the story when I was a wannabe. I still think the kill was badass, always have. I'd shake those guys' hands and buy the first round.

I bet that everybody who was in that airplane have got a lot of offers like that in the last 28 years.

 

[jmcquate]

As for the matter of a Hoover movie, lets start with the title and work backwards..............."Navy-One".

 

[BarryD]

As for the matter of a Hoover movie, lets start with the title and work backwards..............."Navy-One".

“Mission Accomplished”
Could be M. Moore film.

 

[Austin-Powers]

“Mission Accomplished”
Could be M. Moore film.

Oof ouchy my presidency

 

[FrankTheTank]

True enough. The pilot was in my Reserve squadron, a Delta pilot. Not as dumb or embarrassing as it sounds. As he told it, after refueling a package they proceeded on a SSC mission. They located a small boat making way for a friendly. Alpha Sierra didn't have any assets to vector that way. After confirming all the ROE they decided not to let it close any further. The idea was to disable it until someone with a real weapon could sink it. As it was, it was a shack, and the boat sunk in time. Now really, we bombed off the windshield wiper bolt and he dropped a store for which there was no data. No telling the aero on that thing. Yet he scored a direct hit. I'd say good on him. Problem was, the buddy store was sorely missed. Big picture and all. Above average for aggressiveness and 30 degree dive bombing, below average for strategic awareness. Bottom line, O-3 aviators thought it was cool. O-5 and above, not so much.

This was 100% not on the pilot. All we do is pull the trigger. This was 100% on the POS Arming panel and kinda technically the NFO since those were his buttons. Funny thing and unrelated panel/logic but on cruise, I remember a TACCO locking up a Harpoon and it going straight to a release light. Oops.. so much for 2 buttons away.. Good thing no such thing (different logic) could happen to the Mavericks cause they were always locking shit up..

Btw.. unlike normal I’m not poking fun of NFOs. They did all the work and we got all the glory of pulling the trigger.

 

[wink]

This was 100% not on the pilot. All we do is pull the trigger. This was 100% on the POS Arming panel and kinda technically the NFO since those were his buttons. Funny thing and unrelated panel/logic but on cruise, I remember a TACCO locking up a Harpoon and it going straight to a release light. Oops.. so much for 2 buttons away.. Good thing no such thing (different logic) could happen to the Mavericks cause they were always locking shit up..

Btw.. unlike normal I’m not poking fun of NFOs. They did all the work and we got all the glory of pulling the trigger.

My memory may have made his story fuzzy. Now help me out here. I never flew with a buddy store. Wasn't it simply mounted to the rack? You can pickle directly from the rack with no TER, correct? That is how guys accidentally pickled off entire TERs. One of our DHs did it twice in his VS career and he was a prior light attack Vietnam cruise guy. When we did 30 degree dives with dumb bombs I smashed buttons on the POS arm panel but the pilot took aim and dropped. I remeber him saying it was a dive. Did I remeber wrong, not a possible tactic with the classified deadly buddy store?

 

[ChuckMK23]

If memory serves, in Desert Storm/Gulf1, S-3's were given a chance to get their share of strike/flight dropping MK-82 & 84's once SEAD was complete - around 3rd week of air war... early Feb 1991.

Would think they were a very efficient bomb hauler! Was there a computer or bombsight for dropping iron bombs?

 

[HAL Pilot]

Back in the day we dropped iron bombs from the P-3 by a grease pencil mark on the windscreen for the dive angle and a wiper blade bolt for the aim like Wink was talking about. Somewhere in storage they had the bombsights but they hadn't been used in years and no one knew how to calibrate them much less use them. We did a fairly good job hitting smokes in the water.

The reason we didn't worry about doing it this way was because the thought was if we ever actually used a dumb bomb on a submarine, there wouldn't be time to actually take the sight out of the case and mount it. It had to be quick before the sub pulled the plug.