I’m pretty well and truly knackered from all the time zones I’ve been across the last few, and have little to report apart from the fact that the experience of changing terminals and clearing security at Heathrow, I shall never again raise my keyboard up in anger against the TSA. Most likely. Suffice it to say that the Brits must have used differently abled people to raise their empire overseas than they did to puzzle out their airport traffic schemes back at home.
Here are a couple of not entirely discreditable tales from the flying days, as well as a rumination on what it means to be “senior” in the milblogosphere. Which anyways it turns out that I’m probably not the senior-most (a fact I was unaware of at publishing), but merely the senior-most admittedly still-serving pseudonymic milblogger. INCONUS. If that makes any sense. Which it doesn’t, even to me.
But back to the tales (April/May 2005):
And after this? Well, after this comes Rhythms, and that feels like only yesterday.
Oh, and since we’re on about memories, a correspondent asks:
“Can anyone tell me when the Navy first adopted the multi-color coded flight deck jerseys. My dad was an F-4N pilot and he gave me several jerseys (turtleneck) and I am a fan of everything Carrier Navy / USMC. I am trying to model the Lex / Sara / Ranger / Yorkie / and the Big E in the 1937-39 time frame and wanted to know if the colored jerseys were in use then. Thanks for any help!”
Well, surely the adoption of colored-jerseys predates my service, and harkens back to the days of wooden decks, if not square rigged heavy frigates.
B2 – maybe you can help the man? You’re pretty old.
Since you’re tired and where you are, maybe you’ll enjoy reading the following that was wnet to me by a friend, said to be written by a Marine flyer (they can write? Who knew?
.
“3rd MAW C-130 Pilot’s description of Approach into Baghdad
This is a funny story particularly if you lust over mixed metaphors.
This is from a colorful writer from the 3rd Marine Air Wing based at MCAS Miramar.
Not bad writing for a Marine!
***********
There I was at six thousand feet over central Iraq, two hundred eighty knots and we’re dropping faster than Paris Hilton’s panties. It’s a typical September evening in the Persian Gulf; hotter than a rectal thermometer and I’m sweating like a priest at a Cub Scout meeting. But that’s neither here nor there. The night is moonless over Baghdad tonight, and blacker than a Steven King novel. But it’s 2006, folks, and I’m sporting the latest in night-combat technology – namely, hand-me-down night vision goggles (NVGs) thrown out by the fighter boys. Additionally, my 1962 Lockheed C-130E Hercules is equipped with an obsolete, yet, semi-effective missile warning system (MWS). The MWS conveniently makes a nice soothing tone in your headset just before the missile explodes into your airplane. Who says you can’t polish a turd?
At any rate, the NVGs are illuminating Baghdad International Airport like the Las Vegas Strip during a Mike Tyson fight. These NVGs are the cat’s ass.
But I’ve digressed. The preferred method of approach tonight is the random shallow. This tactical maneuver allows the pilot to ingress the landing zone in an unpredictable manner, thus exploiting the supposedly secured perimeter of the airfield in an attempt to avoid enemy surface-to- air-missiles and small arms fire.
Personally, I wouldn’t bet my pink ass on that theory but the approach is fun as hell and that’s the real reason we fly it. We get a visual on the runway at three miles out, drop down to one thousand feet above the ground, still maintaining two hundred eighty knots. Now the fun starts. It’s pilot appreciation time as I descend the mighty Herc to six hundred feet and smoothly, yet very deliberately, yank into a sixty degree left bank, turning the aircraft ninety degrees offset from runway heading. As soon as we roll out of the turn, I reverse turn to the right a full two hundred seventy degrees in order to roll out aligned with the runway. Some aeronautical genius coined this maneuver the “Ninety/Two- Seventy.”
Chopping the power during the turn, I pull back on the yoke just to the point my nether regions start to sag, bleeding off energy in order to configure the pig for landing.
“Flaps Fifty!, landing Gear Down!, Before Landing Checklist!” I look over
at the copilot and he’s shaking like a cat shitting on a sheet of ice.
Looking further back at the navigator, and even through the Nags, I can clearly see the wet spot spreading around his crotch. Finally, I glance at my steely-eyed flight engineer. His eyebrows rise in unison as a grin forms on his face. I can tell he’s thinking the same thing I am …. “Where do we find such fine young men?”
“Flaps One Hundred!” I bark at the shaking cat. Now it’s all aim-point and airspeed. Aviation 101, with the exception there’ are no lights, I’m on NVGs, it’s Baghdad, and now tracers are starting to crisscross the black sky. Naturally, and not at all surprisingly, I grease the Goodyear’s on brick-one of runway 33 left, bring the throttles to ground idle and then force the props to full reverse pitch. Tonight, the sound of freedom is my four Hamilton Standard propellers chewing through the thick, putrid, Baghdad air. The huge, one hundred thirty thousand pound, lumbering whisper pig comes to a lurching stop in less than two thousand feet.
Let’s see a Viper do that!
We exit the runway to a welcoming committee of government issued Army grunts. It’s time to download their beans and bullets and letters from their sweethearts, look for war booty, and of course, urinate on Saddam’s home. Walking down the crew entry steps with my lowest-bidder, Beretta 92F,
9 millimeter strapped smartly to my side, look around and thank God, not Allah, I’m an American and I’m on the winning team. Then I thank God I’m not in the Army.
Knowing once again I’ve cheated death, I ask myself, “What in the hell am I doing in this mess?” Is it Duty, Honor, and Country? You bet your ass.
Or could it possibly be for the glory, the swag, and not to mention, chicks dig the Air Medal. There’s probably some truth there too. But now is not the time to derive the complexities of the superior, cerebral properties of the human portion of the naval aviator-man-machine model. It is however, time to get out of this shit-hole. Hey copilot , clean yourself up! And how’s ’bout the ‘Before Starting Engines Checklist.”
God, I love this job!”
Lex,
I’m not so sure you pre-date wooden decks. When I CQ’s on Lady Lex (and there is NO double meaning there!) in late 80′s, she still had lots o’ wood in the flight deck.
Nose
Yah, but did they still have the oars?
Lex, Lex, Lex…excuse me, make that CAPT’N, CAPT’N, CAPT’N
I’m afraid that you can’t just archive and repost something like……sigh…….Rhythms …… heavy sigh ………..
Such a thing of beauty simply cannot be reheated and served up that way, I’m afraid. Oh well, I’m sure you know that. We’ll just blame it on the jet lag.
However, were you ever to consider penning Rhythms II …… well, you’re tired now and have any right to be, so we’ll just plant that seed for later.
Sorry, that was “every right”, you have every right to be (tired). Much, much more right to be that way than I. However, judging by my typing, it would appear to be past MY bedtime. Until the ‘morrow and all that.
Re. the flight deck jerseys — they go back (via colored vests and cloth caps) to at least Feb 1933. See this example of F4B-4′s from VF-2 on Lexington (F4B-4s entered the fleet beginning Feb ’33):
http://www.oldgloryprints.com/professionals.htm
- SJS
Above should have read “Feb 1933 – 1938″
Sleep well Captain.
“I am trying to model the Lex / Sara / Ranger / Yorkie / and the Big E in the 1937-39 time frame and wanted to know if the colored jerseys were in use then.”
I wondered about this a long time ago and remember reading about it….somehwere…
Maybe it was here in one of these back issues:
http://www.history.navy.mil/nan/backissues/newbackissues.htm
My (all too faulty) memory seems to be stuck on the notion it was one of Reeve’s innovations in the early ’30s.
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/images/h81000/h81154.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_M._Reeves
In some cursory browsing I found these couple of sites:
To go along with the painting (which was inspired by a photo that is published in Friedman’s design study Aircraft Carriers-not sure if its in the online NHC photos) that SJS provided, check out this rare view:
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Cockpit/5520/usa/saratog1.jpg
This is interesting in that the Sara didn’t sport 8 inchers and F4Fs at the same time for very long at all.
And on this site is an extremely rare view of the torpedo damage the Sara took early in the war, along with some other neat stuff
http://community-3.webtv.net/foor/DANsNAVYPHOTOS1940/
More neat-usually not seen-photos here:
http://gozonian.org/v10/page_6.html
SJS musta Googled the same terms! I thought maybe JP Jones thought ‘em up! I’ve seen the old movie “The Lady Lex” and they had multi-colored jerseys albeit different shades of B/W in the movie. Also I’ve seen an old movie with Clark Gable circa 1937-38 that had the same..Gee, colored jerseys are such a common-sense idea (tough at night sometimes) that I hope the Sailor who really thought it up got a bene-sugg or at least a 48 hr. liberty….
Origins of the white jersey, maybe. Sid might like this:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3834/is_200304/ai_n9204973
Here’s a reference chart so the civvies reading can understand what we’re talking about:
http://navysite.de/cvn/catcolor.htm#people
Want to best Mr. Lex at USN Milestones in history? Try:
http://www.linking.to/Navy/
Last link. Want to go to sea LexLadies? Read this about how to pack:
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/navy/rfs/part01.htm
Seeing how Sim’s got a story above, I’ll leave you with these unusual “facts”:
“From Col. D.G. Swinford, USMC, Ret. and history buff. You would really have to dig to get this kind of ringside seat to history:
1. The first German serviceman killed in WW2 was killed by the Japanese (China, 1937), the first American serviceman killed was killed by the Russians (Finland 1940), the highest ranking American killed was Lt. Gen. Lesley McNair, killed by the US Army Air Corps. . . So much for allies.
2. The youngest US serviceman was 12 year old Calvin Graham, USN. He was wounded and given a Dishonorable Discharge for lying about his age. (His benefits were later restored by act of Congress.)
3. At the time of Pearl Harbor the top US Navy command was Called CINCUS (pronounced “sink us”), the shoulder patch of the US Army’s 45th Infantry division was the Swastika, and Hitler’s private train was named “Amerika.”
All three were soon changed for PR purposes.
4. More US servicemen died in the Air Corps than the Marine Corps. While completing the required 30 missions your chance of being killed was 71%.
5. Generally speaking there was no such thing as an average fighter pilot.
You were either an ace or a target. For instance Japanese ace Hiroyoshi Nishizawa shot down over 80 planes. He died while a passenger on a cargo plane.
6. It was a common practice on fighter planes to load every 5th round with a tracer round to aid in aiming. This was a mistake. Tracers had different ballistics so (at long range) if your tracers were hitting the target 80% of your rounds were missing. Worse yet tracers instantly told your enemy he was under fire and from which direction. Worst of all was the practice of loading a string of tracers at the end of the belt to tell you that you were out of ammo. This was definitely not something you wanted to tell the enemy.
Units that stopped using tracers saw their success rate nearly double and their loss rate go down.
YOU’VE GOT TO LOVE THIS ONE….
7. When allied armies reached the Rhine the first thing men did was pee in it. This was pretty universal from the lowest private to Winston Churchill (who made a big show of it) and Gen. Patton (who had himself photographed in the act). found the photo (hand tinted black and white)
8. German Me-264 bombers were capable of bombing New York City but it wasn’t worth the effort.
9. German submarine U-120 was sunk by a malfunctioning toilet.
10. Among the first “Germans” captured at Normandy were several Koreans.
They had been forced to fight for the Japanese Army until they were captured by the Russians and forced to fight for the Russian Army until they were captured by the Germans and forced to fight for the German Army until they were captured by the US Army.
AND I SAVED THE BEST FOR LAST….
11. Following a massive naval bombardment 35,000 US and Canadian troops stormed ashore at Kiska, in the Aleutian Islands. 21 troops were killed in the firefight. It would have been worse if there had been any Japanese on the island.”
B2
Thanks B2
Definitely interesting – and good for a few chuckles too … in a sad kind of way I guess.
Really liked the Ready for Sea link, some of it felt like Rhythms revisited or at least…hey, I know some of this stuff!
So after all these years I learn that chicks are supposed to dig Air Medals? Been out of circulation too long to do me any good…
“Gee, colored jerseys are such a common-sense idea (tough at night sometimes) that I hope the Sailor who really thought it up got a bene-sugg or at least a 48 hr. liberty?
“Gee, colored jerseys are such a common-sense idea (tough at night sometimes) that I hope the Sailor who really thought it up got a bene-sugg or at least a 48 hr. liberty….”
Its really bugging me that I can’t remember where I read the account of how the color coding on the flight deck started. Sucks getting being AARP eligible…
Anyway, I suppose night wasn’t much of an issue since carrier night ops didn’t become an ops normal thing until well into the fifties.
See the article “Nocturnal Naviators” here:
http://www.history.navy.mil/nan/backissues/1950s/1951/jan51.pdf
Of course I can’t find it right now, but there is a NavAir news article about the first jet landings. Around the same time frame. The roster for that evolution was slam full of later luminaries like Don Engen. he has been one of the early VF(N) guys.
The current issue navl history has an account of VF(N)-101 and they were not well recieved aboard the Enterpise. The chain of command would never let them fly at night.
On the white jersey score, interesting reading. Of course the concept didn’t keep that F8U from launching with its wings folded!
In an A3D with no ejection seats, such ski events were pretty sporty. Here is another similar such incident with a VAH-1 aircraft on transit to the Med aboard the Independence:
http://www.a3skywarrior.com/whaletales/closeshave.htm
From someone who was in PRIFLY when this occurred, the gent was forever after known as “Ski” upon return from his bingo to Lajes..
“Of course I can?
“Of course I can’t find it right now, but there is a NavAir news article about the first jet landings.”
make that NIGHT landings…
See “First Jet Night Landing” on magazine page (not pdf page) 11:
http://www.history.navy.mil/nan/backissues/1950s/1950/may50.pdf
Cap’n – welcome home.
Gee Sid- “choke-Spit-choke” 10 mb! You must think I gotta da broadband! Hate to wait to git to work to open!
re 1st jet night landing. Notice all those first timers were CDRs/LCDRs. No LTs allowed! They said “it was pretty much the same as day…”.
Yep. They must have conducted that debrief at the Club where they were knocking ‘em back! No drop lights, no meatball, no datums. Well..at least the deck was straight!
Nose coulda waved ‘em from sound, right Nose? And Lex? He woulda been there if’n he’d a been senior enough.
B2
B2-
I used to say the scariest thing to wave from the platform was a Tomcat nugget on his (uh, their) first night trap. But, jeez, a CDR on THE first night trap? No thanks!
N
BTW all — this Thursday, 26 October marks the 84th anniversary of the fist trap on USS Langley (CV-1) by LCDR Chevalier. Although the first launch was 17 October 1922, it was a deck-run. First cat shot was 17 November 1922 off Langley.
Just thought you should know (and hoist one Thursday)…
-SJS
“No LTs allowed! They said ?
“No LTs allowed! They said “it was pretty much the same as day…”.”
Engen was a Lt. …but he was also one of the first F4U night fighter guys and by the time the night jet landings happened he was known as one of the best sticks in the carrier navy. He had just finished up a tour(or maybe he just about to go) at the Brit’s test pilot school and had trapped a Vampire aboard a Brit carrier with no landing gear on a rubber mat:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3834/is_199901/ai_n8838976
It was ironic tragedy he died in a glider accident.
“But, jeez, a CDR on THE first night trap? No thanks!”
And Nose…if you read Grampaw Pettibone in those 50′s NavAir News you will see that more than a few O-4 and aboves met inglorious ends as they transitioned into jets.
Even into the early ’60s nobody thought the then average of a Class A accident a day in Naval Aviation was a particularly remarkable thing.
sid:
Some research I’m doing for another project pointes to a significant trend amongst the O-4+ ca. 1949-51 who deliberately stepped away from jets in order to remain with props — Corsairs and Spads in particular…and not entirely due to the performance of the early jets in the CV environment either.
-SJS
“Some research I?
“Some research I’m doing for another project pointes to a significant trend amongst the O-4+ ca. 1949-51 who deliberately stepped away from jets in order to remain with props — Corsairs and Spads in particular”
From the Air Ops officer on the Coral Sea during her first Vietnam deployment:
“Those Spad drivers were crazy as hell! We always had to keep them on a short leash…”