Question about the changes in Naval aviation over the last 20 years.

[BusyBee604]

Other than that I will go face that corner Brett was talking about.

So Brett sent you to stand in the corner... you should feel honored. Last dude he sent to 'time out' was the Pope!
BzB

 

[jmcquate]

Fog, I loved the Phantom. It's a big reason I am where I am today. I stand by my statement though. You could take all of the avionics upgrades from the Rhino and put them in a F-4, and I'm still choosing the F-18.

It's all about he smoke. If only a Hornet could come out of burner and have a smoke trail like an F-4

 

[Fog]

Fog, I loved the Phantom. It's a big reason I am where I am today. I stand by my statement though. You could take all of the avionics upgrades from the Rhino and put them in a F-4, and I'm still choosing the F-18.

You're correct in your point, I'm sure. We had the A-6 at the time, but I remain disappointed & bitter that the Navy never put a multi-mode radar in the F-4B/J. The AF had the F-4E, and I feel the Navy severely short-changed itself by never putting an attack radar and gun in its F-4s. Anyway, the WSO in a Rhino can obviously see the tactical situation visually much better than any RIO ever could - which has to help in an ACM environment. As Ricky Ricardo said, I'm just yealous.

 

[Renegade One]

As Ricky Ricardo said, I'm yust yealous.

FIFY.

 

[Catmando]

What has changed? Off the top of my head, here are a few.
OK, maybe more than 20 years. But in no particular order I remember when:

• Enlisted Messmen used to clean our staterooms and make our bunks daily while aboard ship and in the BOQ.
• We had strippers in the O’Club.
• It was relatively easy to get into AOCS. Getting through it? Not so much.
• Annual Tailhook Reunion moved from Mexico to Las Vegas.
• We carried heavy and clinking parachute bags full of booze aboard ship for our next line period.
• Women easily got waved through the gate so they could go to the O’Club.
• Women were forbidden to serve aboard ships.
• There was no HIV.
• War protestors, hippies, and even some of your old friends hated you.
• Sonic booms were common.
• Flathatting might get you in trouble but was common.
• Grease pens on canopies were common.
• We had to really work to burn up all of our OPTAR funds or our ammunition allotment - and often did not.
• Live ordnance training was common.
• You weren’t supposed to try to down a BQM with live missiles, but many guys tried and did.
• Enlisted men wore either dungarees or their sharp looking and salty ‘cracker jacks’. Officers had lots of uniform choices (and ruined many with dining-ins and outs).
• Flight suits were orange or green. Nomex and Velcro were new inovations. (I even got a flight suit that was white along with a white torso harness – for "nuclear blast protection.")
• Aircraft were brightly painted in squadron colors. With near total air superiority, there was little need for any camouflage. Colorful Richthofen flying circuses we were.
• On average, Tac-Air pilots and NFOs would have ejected at least once every five years.
• DUIs were called DWIs and were almost unheard of, despite the prevalence of people driving drunk.
• There was no Internet, no email, no games, no iPods etc. To talk to family or friends back home you had to schedule a hard to get appointment or wait in a long line to call home. Phone calls on civilian lines were outrageously expensive. Phone patches worked (had to say "over" after each transmission), but were rare. Either that or send a cassette tape recording via snail mail.
• Auto dogs did not exist.
• Bad stack gas burned the lungs and made you want to puke.
• Teletypes rattled in the ready room.
• Brutal shellback initiations.
• Water hours aboard ship and minimal AC in the tropics.
• Guys smoked not only in the ready room, but also in the aircraft despite their O2. Some aircraft had ashtrays. But most guys used the empty battery compartment on their kneeboards for an ashtray.
• Big shipboard (secret?) parties at the end of a line period.
• There were no tactical ranges, no Power point, and not even any whiteboards. The first guy to the debriefing blackboard with chalk ‘won’ the ACM training mission.
• Ready Room movies were on celluloid film with a projector and a pull down screen.
• Mombasa and Karachi were friendly ports. And Iran was our friend and ally. We also supported the Mujahideen in Afghanistan.
• Coordinated strike briefings were in person in AI (later, CVIC).
• Some guys took ‘long’ weekend cross-countries from Miramar to North Island for "personal reasons."
• You went NORDO about every 4th hop or so.
• In F-14As, you lost an engine about once a week.
• Excluding combat, a career naval aviator had a 23% chance of dying in an aircraft mishap.

There is much more. BzB can add, as can some other old farts and geezers.

 

[Catmando]

For Catmando:

While I like the pic, both those aircraft are from the wrong coast! ;-)

 

[exNavyOffRec]

words

Many of those things make me think I was born too late, some I will pass on

 

[rondebmar]

Solves the problem in every aspect. On a serious side note I worked for the pilot of the C-130 that landed on the USS Forrestal and he said it was the scariest thing he did in his entire career. He had some pretty awesome stories to tell about it. Other than that I will go face that corner Brett was talking about.

"That pilot" would be Jim Flatley III ...as CAG-3 LSO in early/mid nineteen- sixties, Jim waved me aboard USS Saratoga a couple hundred times ...later was Sara's CO (1979-1981) ...then two-star ...later associated with the Yorktown exhibit at Charleston SC ...then part of an (unsuccessful) effort to convince city of Jacksonville to accept the Sara upon her decommissioning.

Excerpt from here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_C-130_Hercules

"In 1963, a Hercules achieved and still holds the record for the largest and heaviest aircraft to land on an aircraft carrier.[13] During October and November that year, a USMC KC-130F (BuNo 149798), loaned to the U.S. Naval Air Test Center, made 29 touch-and-go landings, 21 unarrested full-stop landings and 21 unassisted take-offs on the USS Forrestal at a number of different weights.[14] The pilot, LT (later RADM) James H. Flatley III, USN, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his role in this test series. The tests were highly successful, but the idea was considered too risky for routine "Carrier Onboard Delivery" (COD) operations. Instead, the C-2 Greyhound was developed as a dedicated COD aircraft. The Hercules used in the test, most recently in service with Marine Aerial Refueler Squadron 352 (VMGR-352) until 2005, is now part of the collection of the National Museum of Naval Aviation at NAS Pensacola, Florida."

 

[WEGL12]

"That pilot" would be Jim Flatley III ...as CAG-3 LSO in early/mid nineteen- sixties, Jim waved me aboard USS Saratoga a couple hundred times ...later was Sara's CO (1979-1981) ...then two-star ...later associated with the Yorktown exhibit at Charleston SC ...then part of an (unsuccessful) effort to convince city of Jacksonville to accept the Sara upon her decommissioning."

He is a great guy. I started working at the Yorktown shortly after he left as the CEO but he still has a big impact on the museum. He is the only former/ current CEO that goes around the ship and stops to talk to the workers. Everyone that works there will bend over backwards for projects requested/suggested by Adm. Flatley. His father was the first CAG on the Yorktown so Adm. Flatley truly cares about the ship and it shows. When the Saratoga museum fell threw he had a lot of the artifacts donated to Patriots Point, many of which are going to be displayed in the Vietnam carrier exhibit. I only got to work on one of the projects he was associated with (restoring a F-14 in honor of his son's squadron, I believe it was VF-143) but he told several of the stories from the C-130 experience, flying the F-4, and his time on the Saratoga.

Just for anyone interested (since they're are few on here that flew the F-14)

The first picture is when we first start restoring the plane and the second picture is the finished paint job before we put the markings on.

 

[HAL Pilot]

^ No cranial???

Wait for it.......wait for it.......

SAFETY VIOLATOR!

 

[Gatordev]

• There was no Internet, no email, no games, no iPods etc. To talk to family or friends back home you had to schedule a hard to get appointment or wait in a long line to call home. Phone calls on civilian lines were outrageously expensive. Phone patches worked (had to say "over" after each transmission), but were rare. Either that or send a cassette tape recording via snail mail.
• Water hours aboard ship and minimal AC in the tropics.

Don't worry, some of those things are still alive and well in the Frigate Navy.