Carrier Air Wing Five over Mount Fuji. Including a shining example of an ultra-tactical paint scheme from the SSHWFGD (super sh!t hot world famous golden dragons) of VFA-192 – really the class of the organization, unless things have very much changed in the intervening years.
The formation is lead here by an E-2C from the VAW-115 “Liberty Balls” and a VRC-30 C-2 from the forward-deployed COD det (who, if they hadn’t between them led the thing, prolly couldn’t have gotten aboard for the rendezvous), a VAQ-136 “Gauntlet” jet, not that there’s anything wrong with that, an FA-18F tanker from the VFA-102 “Diamondbacks” – used to be a Tomcat squadron, ’til they got some class – and an FA-18E tanker from the “Royale (with cheese) Maces” of VFA-27.
Next in the queue is the second best squadron I’ve ever known, the aforementioned Golden Dragons, followed (as is customary) by them ‘orrible Chippy-ho’s (not the Don Imus variety, I don’t think) the Damn Busters of VFA-195. Not shown is any helicopter from the “Chargers” of HS-14, on account of the thin air up there, and the dreadful speed that’s in it (E-2′s and C-2′s notwithstanding). Not to mention the clouds and such.
FDNF, baby. Best duty in the fleet.
I wonder who’s in charge of the O’Club, now that Charley-san and Kenny-san have (I am told) between them gone one to pasture and the other to the clearing at the end of the path?
(And a H/T to occn’l reader Jason for the pic!)
Thank the good Lord they had a tanker with them or we would have lost the other three hornets!!
Nose
PS I remember the Diamondbacks when they were manly.
One of those Diamondbacks was down here not too long ago…
Many years ago at NAS Lemoore, VA-195, “The Dam Busters”, were located in the first hangar on the right as you drove in past Operations. They had a very large and obnoxious sign high up on the side of the hangar proclaiming their presence to the world. One night some of the boys of other world famous squadrons obtained some really long ladders and exchanged two of the letters, the A and the U. It sort of said it all. Lots of photo’s showed up at the next happy hour.
Nice balanced parade positions displaying good airmanship, too.
Just think how real streamlined it’ll look once we get the Growler in thar….. necessitating another tanker configured SuperHornet of course. A totally F.A.G. airwing!
(not that there is anything wrong with THAT).
Just think of all those cost savings in AFM and AVDLR…wow.
b2
Mackey-san tends bar and he gets slower with each passing year. They have been through some management issues in the last 2 years at the club, but starting last summer that had a really good guy running it.
Problem is, business is down. When they renovated the club people got used to not going there. (The new bar looks nice, but its like a ghost town on most nights). Also in the current no fun of anykind Navy and the “God forbid you move a vehicle from a to b if you have sniffed a beer” mentality, people don’t partake. They tried opening it up again to Japanese guests on Friday and Saturday nights, but there were issues with outside the gate business about that. Which is a shame because getting girls in their would be a good thing. Beats hitting on somebodies wife………..
The Diamondbacks also were a different group than VF-154 was. They tend to do more green lights of their CO’s and they did a lot of partying away from the club.
Its still a good place to go, but not the same as it was 5 to 7 years ago.
E-2 leading!
If by “couldn’t have gotten aboard” you’re speaking strictly in k-nots, I presume. While few and far between, we can form with the best; surely you’ve had an hour or two at the helm of the Hummer…peering out the front end of a sewer pipe…grasping machinery conceived before yourself. But I’m sure it was the speed!
Oh, definitely – I speak only of airspeed. And the casual, disaffected way that some blowpipe leads treat their q-challenged wingmen.
But I never did get my hands on the stick (yoke?) of an Echo-Two-Charlie. Would have meant using rudders, which how talented could one guy be?
B2, Agree absolutly… that is a totally F.A.G airwing…and we both know, in our heart of hearts, that there certainly is something wrong with THAT.
Re The joy of contemplating the cost savings in AFM and AVDLR… I have only two words to describe my thoughts…WOW… and WOW. Best
Hey Lex, it’s Liberty *Bells*…
Hard to think of that O’club as dead…spent many a night ’round the bar and playing shuffleboard. Good times…
Brian
It’s good to see that we’re getting some colorful paint back on our birds. So much better than the gray and black.
Ah h**l, I remember the Diamondbacks when they flew the F-4…
-SJS
It’s Liberty “Belles”
LOL, I kill myself
Nose
To Nose; I remember when the Diamondbacks were real manly. McDonnelDouglas F-4J Phantom II. CVW-7 embarked in USS Independence, CV62, a long time ago. I reported aboard Indy in January 1974. I guess I am officially “old”?
Re: Nose: Fly One Blueshirt.
Now b2, even with an airwing full of F.A.G.’s, they’re still going to need to be told where to go, what to do, and why red flightsuits scream ‘Elton John’. For that, everyone needs a Hummer. E-2D: she’s a comin’ and it’s more than just plastic surgery! It’s Friday here in Stuttgart…Prost!
H.D.-
re- “need to be told where to go, what to do”
All except “Tanker posit?”. That’s innate.
E-2D. Do you mean Hawkeye 3000?
Lex,
re- “Would have meant using rudders, which how talented could one guy be?”
There’s 2 pilots up thar. I think one controls the yoke and power (right handed-strange) and the other keeps ta ball centered and talks on da radio…
Ever rendezvous on a Hummer ?(how does that sound Snake?). Almost comical to see all them helmeted heads peering out da winders. They look like mice in them cartoons!
b2
Stuttgart! Bought a car there on a tourist delivery program, back before I got married. Back when I had money. Gut bier!
Never did r-vous on a Hummer, B2 – kept thinking about all those nasty ‘trons raging around, made me thoughtful. Did hear about one unfortunate Turkey crew that decided to sneak up on one and thump it. Didn’t pay no never mind to the EHF antenna they had hanging half-way back to the boat. Scaresome.
Believe it or not, E-2D Advanced Hawkeye…actually a program of record with a few bil(lion)s behind it. The oracles tell us the radar’s so good, dang thing’ll see into the future. The venerable Hummer program has been flying in some form or fashion since 1961; imagine a world where F-8′s were still flying:)
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/aircraft/e-2d.htm
The rounded, white shiney things you see in the back windows of the tube aren’t always helmets with reflective tape…
Only one monkey on the yoke at a time. Left seat flies, right plays personal LSO and radio-talker coming down the chute. Rest of us in back are just working the rosary and hawking the altimeter until that oh-so comforting tug of the 3-wire.
H-dude,
Well aware of E-2D program and its billions..it’s just down the hall.
Look. I’ll be blunt (Ha-Ha-what else?). My problem with it, OR any Hummer variant, is that it is too heavy and cannot get high enough for good “grazing” despite any modest engine gains it may have. Modern sensors demand it A-A or A-G. The range sucks and endurance just keeps getting worse. Putting a probe on it ain’t no panacea either…tanking off a SuperHornet (if they can EVER get that concept to actually work…) is just “levitating”, sort of…Think about that in relation to the FACT that 1/3 of all SuperHornets in a wing with no S-3s will be configured as tankers ONLY. A thirsty E-2 just drives that % up. One must consider his hand before he makes any moves in poker.
Technically/economically, we are just putting expensive “perfume on a pig” with the E-2D…Think about that before you jump on me for simply thinking I’m calling the Hummer a pig. That isn’t my intent.
IMO, C.S.A. or some variant would have been a better alternative is all. Technology beckons son.
re that C-2 pictured: Fine and dandy for gulf/littoral ops. Push the CSG out into the N.A.S. or blue water and it’s legs can’t cope. We had more capability when Miss Piggy was around…but of course you young’uns have no clue.
b2
b2,
Valid at trigger squeeze, valid at timeout, call it a kill.
While I’m sold on the $aving$ aspect of the Common Support Aircraft — which the Super/Hornet is becoming more and more of with every iteration — there’s something to be said for specialization. True, the Hawkeye airframe has lived far too long. Something better should’ve come along. The ubiquitous “they” chose short term savings, which has turned into long-term expense and a pain in the arse for all involved (Govt/Acq/Contractors). CSA would’ve probably been a half-baked solution for all of our airborne C2 / maritime search / logistics requirements; kind of like the Super Hornet in other areas…
I’m standing next to a dead horse and I did most of the beating. Off to the rendering plant! I’ll pick a new topic next post. Thanks for the dose.
Still a Proud HummerDude
Re: “Belles”…I walked into that one, Nose.
I remember some talk back in the day about putting a refueling probe on Hummers. Made my head hurt even thinking about it – just imagine quad cycles – ugh! ‘Course we were wearin’ the old-style double visor helmets that left a big ol’ rising sun smack in the center of your forehead. I remember doing an AWACs swap-ex and all them AF folks walking on that passenger jet carryin’ brand new shiny made-to-fit leather-lined helmets that were light as a feather (now standard issue in the Navy as well). I asked one what he did with that nice helmet once on board, and he promptly stowed it under his seat. I probably coulda swapped his helmet for a bag of rocks and he never would’ve been the wiser.
Re: that HF wire hanging way back there…good for phone patches back to Atsugi via Insurlik and for TFOA paperwork.
Brian
B2 and Hummerdude,
Concur with both of you guys, but we spent all the recent money on a new P-3 (something we really need!) and replacing all those old legacy hornets.
Playing with the HF in the A320 today. Temped to dial up 11176 and call Thule for a phone patch home. Bet the wife would remember to say “over” after she talked! And we don’t have to drag a wire to make it work.
Refuel probes have been placed on hummers – IAF did it. Probably a non-starter for us though, we don’t train/fly night form (hell, we barely train to form!) and like B2 said, what would we tank off of?
I’m sure there are some AEW pods in work for the F-18H.
Brian – some of my best friends are gay…er… I mean Liberty Bells. (Not that there is anything wrong with either of those). Flew with JJ, Corpse and Stix in 120, and Barely and Stix in 78, all good dudes.
When were you there?
Nose
You guys are confused, or what I have bloviated about here in the past about our Hornet-centric airwings, hasn’t “matured”.
- CSA was a jet concept (goes high)and would make Skippy happy.
- Range/endurance would be 50% greater than any E-2 proposal.
BTW, you’ve missed something significant. SuperHornet replaces Bombcat and JSF will replace legacy Hornets..at least that’s what I heard.
Let me go one step further on the E-2 IFR concept. It’s not levitating it’s simply an optical allusion…
On the contrary, I revel in airwing diversity. Persistent am I.
What we’ve got going is a shell game at worst, a Ponzi scheme at best. Same with shipbuilding. LOL (cynically).
Re P-3′s Nose: MMA is a cash horse right now and the P-3 is in trouble. Ever hear of the bathtub effect? Sort of like being real low in the middle. View time vs power and equate that with time & $$’s. You won’t read that in AW&ST but trust me..a helluva lot of .ppt pixels are spent spinning numbers…
b2
b2,
Yes, I was dribbling popcicles down my Shazam shirt when you were shaking the deck plates, but CSA was never more than a concept. Concepts can have any capability we can dream up…make it 500% greater range and endurance, it’s no basis for comparison. CSA was so fuzzy, even the boys at Revell (makers of fine plastic planes…not to be confused with Boeing) wouldn’t take a whack at it; and they WERE confident enough to sell an F-19 Stealth Fighter based on probable cause…whatever that is.
Whenever the 50-lb craniums can create a data pipe robust enough, that fancy E-2D radar should go on a CVN-launched UAV. Let the battle managers control live via satellite from an office building in India; might as well outsource and save some $ that way too.
The USAF euthanized the E-10 already. Looks like their future is still in the past, along with our Navy’s.
I don’t know if there’s a bottom line statement, but the portfolio mismanagement and underinvestment in lifecycle replacement during the Clinton reign may be something we never recover from. Rhinos and JSF’s are nice, but can we build them fast enough…
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/csa.htm
Cheers, HummerDude
P.S. lex, that’s just an HF (nothing Extreme about it) antenna trailing behind the older models. EHF antenna could fit in your gym bag. Didn’t you save your EE notebook?? The Spring Fest bier is on sale now! (bottles which you could fit an SHF antenna in, but over to the Melvins at NSA for that mod)
“fancy E-2D radar”?
Hell, it still rotates, don’t it? May be “fancy” but it ain’t advanced.
re “sewer pipe” We need one out there to do several missions but because everything is a tradeoff we have what we have. I’ll not hang my hat on CSA. It was DIW when it was Hornets or nothing,..By bringing it up I was just trying to drag the tired old E-1-E-2 concept into the jet age, by showing you what you could have had. Sure there were no prototypes, it was killed in the cradle. No company produces something so Revell can make a model like the 196o’s. Developing prototypes takes a serious infusion of govmint bucks, early. Something had to give in 1997, but that was before 9-11, if you can grasp the significance. What have we actually IOCd since? Just a bunch of extended lawn darts with an IFR capability. And for any three Rhinos you put on the flight deck, one MUST be configured as an overhead tanker with ZERO warfighting capability. How many subs, surface ships have we launched lately? Dude, we are going the way of the 1920′s Navy ala “The Sand Pebbles”..Unfortunetly, all this couldn’t come at a worse time..the world beng as fuKKed up as it is. And that’s the shame of it, I am sure you would agree.
Despite all of that I still bleed blue and I know we can still prevail in any encounter. I am just concerned our “prevailing” will come at a high
cost and I ain’t talking bucks…
UAV’s do your mission? Check out how many KW your own aircraft generates with 2 big turboprops. Can you imagine the size UAV vehicle that would take? Not in my lifetime.
I ought to just S.T.F.U., but I am dismayed when we only have 11 carriers with 65 aircraft apiece and a CSG is 4 ships. Talk about being optimum, Dude, we are underpowered…
b2
Nose – Corpse (a singularly unique individual) is a good friend of mine – he got to 115 shortly after I did. He’s XO of 117 right now – his CO is one of my best friends. The three of us hung out a lot during our time in 115.
Saw Corpse last when I was at the 117 CoC last August. During the outgoing CO’s speech the hanger fire supression system (AFFF) went off due to heat from the sterno cans keeping the food warm on the buffet in the hanger. It made for a memorable affair.
JJ, Barely & Stix were probably after my time. Rainman, Rude Asian, NAFOD, Uncle Buck (“UB”), and Elvis are some of the front end guys from my time there.
Brian (CS “Whiz”)