The wingtip Nav lights came on just before the shooter did his final safety checks.
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salty dog 502 gets first trap
- Thread starter wink
- Start date
Obviously there could be something related to testing a UAV that is different, but neither of the above statements make sense. AoA indexers (at least in the aircraft I have flown) are inhibited with weight on wheels, and you don't use pos lights at the boat except at night. Blinking to solid nose gear lights (I guess the indexers?) would make sense as some sort of a signal that they are ready, with the lack of ability to salute.
I thought the same thing... sounded to me like the callsign I remembered from the ol' A-4 Sqdn VA-163 "Saints". But alas, I was close, looked it up and their C/S was Old Salt!
BzB
We weren't able to salute at night... assuming they have navigation lights, couldn't they just turn them on as "ready to go" like we did at night?
BzB
Pretty sure that's what happened in the video. Nav lights came on, shooter did final checks, cat fired.We weren't able to salute at night... assuming they have navigation lights, couldn't they just turn them on as "ready to go" like we did at night?
BzB
Per above, MIDNJAC was referring to AoA/Indexer lights, mine to navigation (running) lights.
BzB
I watched it in higher resolution and that wasn't the indexer that was green (it would be red if it were... derp), the indexers are off, it's some other light on the nose gear. The pos lights that jmcquate mentioned did seem to be some sort of a signal that it's ready.
Okay…guess I didn't read the link I found loosely enough: http://www.anft.net/f-14/f14-squadron-pmtc.htm
Don't let the link name scare you…it talks about the NAWC, and kinda sorta infers that all of them used to use the C/S "Salty Dog"? E.G:
CALLSIGN: SALTY DOG
NWTS: Naval Weapons Test Squadron China Lake, redesignated VX-31 as of May 01, 2002
NAWC AD: NAWC Aircraft Devision, redesignated VX-23
I dunno…but thanks for keeping me straight. I sure seem to remember a west coast call sign like that…but maybe I'm thinking of my favorite tipple at the Cubi O'Club...
Since the video was day/case 1, I didn't reference pos lights as they are off the whole time. But for BZB, absolutely, we still flick the pinky light at night in place of the salute, just like you great Americans did back in much more notable times.
R1, I wouldn't doubt that you are right about there being a Salty Dog callsign on the west coast back in the day sir. Only real reason I know the above is that we were doing fleet CQ last summer when they were flying their F/A-18B around the VX CQ pattern with the UCAS computers flying with said C/S, and I also remember "Bloodhound" checking into the NAOPA from my RAG days and their S-3's were always a near mid air waiting to happen
Probably min weight shot just like the T-45 I bet.....