So. Yesterday afternoon the company I’m privileged to work for held a team-building exercise whose acronym I will helpfully expand for you, poor thing that you are, unaccustomed to military style abbreviations: Ground Ordnance Loading Facility. This event was held at a place y-clept “Sea ‘n Air,” on Naval Air Station North Island, California. Which demesne circumscribes the local aerodrome, like.
The Teeny-Weenies were here from Corpus (or P-Cola, maybe) for to orient midshipmen here in Sandy Eggo for their summer cruise to the vaulting pleasures of naval aviation. In thirty minute, stomach churning flights.
Now, although the T-34C seemed like quite enough airplane for novice aviator Lex way back in the way-back-when, there were later times, gentle reader, having familiarized myself with the richer merits of such aircraft as come equipped by their makers with turbojet engines and ejection seats (not to mention multi-mode radars, forward looking infrared pods, nine g limits and Mach 2.0 redlines) that I did the Turbo Mentor some disparagement. I do confess it.
The instructors sent hither from the training command appear to fly these aircraft like they were stolen. Pitch up departures, mil-rated runs to the operating area for some overheads followed by swooping recoveries back to the field – vapor trails coming off the wingtips in the break (on a T-34!), gear out abeam (still at 80 degrees angle of bank), and then a heart-stopping wingover to final, skidding all the way to touchdown just to take the smash off the bird. Any man (or woman, for that matter) that still wants to go to flight school after having experienced such an orientation flight has the requisite courage of heart and iron determination of mind, or else is utterly lacking in imagination, or fear. Or both.
All of these will do.
And yet I found myself staring up at these upstarts enviously. The flight instructors I mean. And their sporty little turboprop machines. Whose collective existence five years or so ago I would not have deigned to recognize, so lofty was my perch, and imperial my gaze.
Thus, have I fallen, yea: Even from the floor.
Lex, I don’t mean this disparagingly but better to be a “has-been” than a “never- was”. Like me. I live my Mitty-esque existence for those brief moments flitting about the blue at a smokin’ 65 knots knowing that my personal Vne is 125kts in a ragwing and me at the controls. ( But I’ll take it anyday). Hats off to all you guys (and gals) who made the grade and do/did it for real. On behalf of the rest of us. GEO6
T-34’s fly close over the neighborhood often (part of the LL flight team) but there was an AD limiting their flight envelope. Seems the Spars were failing with inconvenient wing separation.
The newer T-6 II refueled at the local FBO and I heard this was the plane to replace the T-34. Guess they must have found a way to fix the wing spars.
I suspect they have a little more mojo than the Varga.
Yeah. . .going on det to do middie ops is oh-so-sexy when you’re looking up in the sky. Look down by the hotspots to the poor primary-complete shlub who is working 12 hour days sucking JP-5 exhasut fumes strapping the little mids into the Weenie. Double your fun when they come back with a “full bag” (or an empty bag an a full lap) and need to be unstrapped.
“We need someone NATOPS qual’d in the T-34 to go on det and fly the middies for cruise. You wanna do it?”
Never Again Volunteer Yourself.
So yeah, I feel ya, Cap’n.
Lucky mids to get a T-34,
I got a few minutes of flying a COD
plus a few minutes of being a rotorhead.
My God Lex, get a hold of yourself man. It ain’t that much fun…
BoooHoooo.
b2
Back in the good old days they flew us around the country to get out fams. I got lucky and got an extra long hop in a TA-4J because they had to fly it down to Corpus from Kingsville. Cool with a capital “C”.
Then we went from Corpus to San Dog for two weeks staying a hotel in Pt Loma………….on Uncle Sams dime.
No scrimping pennies in those days.
Aww… Hmm, maybe we should take up a collection to buy Lex a (Folland/Hindustan) Gnat. I think there are a few private ones in the country with some time left on them. We’d also have to fund a fuel fund, too, the way things are these days. Designed by a good honest Quaker, they were, just like USS Constitution. Dunno if Lex’d fit, though, they are itty bitty jets.