It’s not even past, at NAS Kingsville, Texas:
The Morale, Welfare and Recreation Department unveiled their latest “toy” for base personnel Friday, Oct. 31 in the form of a mechanical device designed to simulate catching a wire on an aircraft carrier. The “Kingsville Catapult” or “King Kat” as it is called, was designed and built by VT-21 Training Officer LT Casey Bates. The project took three months to complete from design to test drive, and included the volunteer efforts of several other aviators, dubbed the King Kat air crew.
The design was borrowed from the “Cubi Cat” at NAS Cubi Point in Olongapo, PI.
The Cubi Cat was long gone by the time your correspondent started haunting the darker dens of South East Asia, but the legend lived on in the hearts and minds of those who went before.
Back in the day… Cubi Point Naval Air Station and the adjoining Subic Bay Naval Base in the Philippines were a place where war-weary Navy and Marine Corps aviators, Marines and Sailors, could let off a little steam after flying combat missions over Vietnam or spending weeks on the gunline aboard ships on Yankee Station. Club managers were always being tasked with coming up with new and interesting ways to keep personnel entertained, which wasn’t always easy.
Enter CDR John L. Sullivan and the now famous Cubi Point Officers’ Club Catapult. The “Cat” came into existence in 1969 and immediately created a division within naval air among those who had ridden the cat and caught the wire, and those who had ridden the cat and missed the wire and gotten soaked. The escapades of Navy and Marine pilots at the Cubi Point Officers’ Club, according to Sullivan, is the stuff of legend…
The ‘Cat’… was 6-feet long and had shoulder straps and a safety belt and was equipped with a stick that, when pulled back sharply, released a hook in the rear of the vehicle to allow arrestment. Propulsion was provided by pressurized nitrogen tanks hooked up to a manifold…
“This arrangement provided enough power to propel the vehicle to 15 mph in the first two feet,” said Sullivan. “Acceleration of zero to 15 mph in two feet is the equivalent of the G force of World War II hydraulic catapults. The downward curvature of the track had to be precise. The rollers would bind if the curvature were too sharp. Beyond the exit from the club was a pool of water 3 1/2 feet deep, which would stop the Cat, if the pilot were not successful in catching the wire and stopping the Cat…
Word of the Cat quickly spread throughout Southeast Asia and even attracted Air Force F-4 pilots from Clarke AFB. They would come swaggering in loudly claiming they were equal to the task. Each and every one of them failed to catch the wire, much to the delight of the Navy onlookers.
Well, you know what they say: You want a new idea, read an old book. They’ve brought back the Cubi O’Club to NAS Pensacola, and now the Cubi Cat to NAS Kingsville. If only someone could find that log book.
Great work by a dedicated group of volunteers. More on it at Airwarriors.com.
here’s the thread link, “MasterBates” is the designer, builder, tester, etc.
http://www.airwarriors.com/forum/showthread.php?t=145158
What! No Cubi Special on the drink menu for the Pensacola Cubi Club – it’s a damn shame.
Is the Cubi Cat similar to the one shown in that wild “O” Club scene from the movie” The Flight of the Intruder”? Best
Hi, My father, Commander John L. Sullivan and his aircraft maintainence crew built the catapult ride during our time in Subic back in 1968-70. For my 16th birthday party he arranged for us to use the “Cat” room for 3 hours. The real ride was a cockpit that was catapulted on a 30-40 foot track toward a small swimming pool. If you failed to catch the wire you went out of the building and into the pool. You got soaked as the water came up to the top of your belly. Then you and the cockpit were wenched back up the track and into position again. You wore a flight suit for this so you would keep your own clothes dry. My buddies and I all tried to catch the wire but failed and got soaked. The ride in the movie was nothing like the real ride. The author of the book loved the real ride but could not build one like it so he improvised for the movie. What a great wild time we had in Subic for my high school years! To this day that party was one of if not the best birthday party I’ve had. And I’ve had some wild ones in my day! See ya Sully
Had me laughin there recalling the P.I. “Hysterical, naked, drunk” about captures the end of those ville runs.
Being now situated on the Gulf, near (as the crow flies) to Cuba, wouldn’t be the Cubi-Club “Cubi Special” be a “Cuba-Libre?” (double in a tall glass, that is…)
Virgil:
God forbid that a Cubi Special could ever be compared to a Cuba Libra. They are two different animals. Besides, I was just trying to see if I could raise the ire of Snake. Being the smart lawyer that he is, he didn’t bite. Someday, I’m gonna force a Cubi Special down him and get him to admit that they are not too bad. Hopefully, Bad Bob will help me. Boss.
I was there before, during and after the cat was in operation. The first bar at the New Cubi O’Club was in front of the windows overlooking the bay. The bar stools were arm chair type and on rollers. The aviation crowd found it fun to ride the the chairs and be “launched” down the steps in the club. This was hard on chairs and was one of the reasons for the “Cat Shot” housed in what became know as the “Cat House.”
I was present when an Aviation Admiral, name forgotten, tried a Cat Shot while wearing Diner Dress Whites……..of course he missed the wire.
xairboss (alias) E Yat:
All this got me reminissin’. My favorite Navy drinks were had at the Stone Elephant in DaNang. On Sundays in the court-yard it was all the spare-ribs and Navy Grog/Mai-Thais you could eat/drink while you waited for your chosen steak to be grilled–all for $2.67US Script. (Sigh)
PS: And it took a longgg time too, as the line was a mile long–so LOTS of time for the ribs and grog to go down prior to the steak and all the fixuns. –just perfect for young animal jr officers.
Lex,
Thanks for the mention of the KingKat. It’s been in operation for about a month now, and has been quite popular at wingings. Of course now they are telling me Oceana needs one.
I’ll find out Wednesday if being good at the King/Cubi Cat helps at the boat.
We were stationed out in Cubi back in 1968-70. I went to high school there and had a blast. You can imagine a bunch of high school kids with Olongapo just of base. This place was like the old south seas WWII ports of call you see in the movies, with 200 bars off the base for recreation purposes. I remember when Dad (Commander John L. “Jack” Sullivan) and his crew built the “Cat” ride at the Cubi O’Club. It was located in a small building just out back of the main building on the mountain. Dad had arranged for us to use the facility one night for my 16th and my sister Maura’s 14th birthday parties. We had a band, food and of course the “Cat” ride. The ride was on a track that led out of the building to a small pool. If you did not catch the wire you got soaked. Everyone wore a special flight suit for the ride so you could change into your dry clothes when you got out. No one in our party caught the wire. We had 100 shots at it. There was a ‘Wall of Fame” with the names of all who caught the wire on the wall. It was a big thing to have your name on this wall. The author of “Flight of the Intruder” was so impressed with this ride he put it into the book and the movie with Danny Glover and William Defoe. He could not duplicate the ride for the movie so they had a fake ride out in a bar in Olongapo that had you fall in a mud pit if you didn’ catch the wire. I still have pictures of this ride from the party 39 years ago. This is still my most memorable birthday ever! By the way, they recreated the “Cubi Bar at the NAS Air Museum in Pennsacola. There is a display of the “Cat” ride there. Check it out.
I was there in ‘69… junior in high school. My father was Capt. “RedHorse” Myers, the CO of Cubi. I do believe some of you may have been invited up for coffee before the “RedHorse” Cathouse was built. The admiral in whites may have been Mickey Weisner but I can’t remember. My dad was in whites too that night, but they sneakily moved the hook snubber back so he could catch a wire AFTER the admiral missed. After they removed the cat a few years later, they turned the “pool” at the end into a flower garden. Good times over many many years.
Beef Myers
Cdr. USN ret
Just a quick follow up to the above “Cat” story. Years later after Dad (Commander John L. “Jack” Sullivan) retired from the navy he went to work for Grumman. He traveled back to Subic Bay and went to the club at Cubi. The “Cat” room was still there but the “Catapult Ride” was gone and the pool filled in. It turns out that someone decided to turn the place into a teen-club. Personally, we didn’t need it. There was a great teen club in Kalayan, the housing area in Subic. When Dad told the story to the current O’Club manager he got excited and wanted to know if the ride could be reinstated, but alas it was a former era and would be too much work to complete. Today Dad is 85 and lives near me in Florida at a golf course community near Tarpon Springs. He still shoots his age on the golf course. He wrote a book “Shields of Honor” . It tells his life story from being an NYPD detective through his Naval Aviation career from WWII, Korea (leading the last airstrike of the war, and making the last carrier landing) through Vietnam and onto his career as project manager for the F-14 in Shiraz, Iran during the overthrow of the Shah. In the book Dad goes into detail how and why the ride was conceived. The ride saved a lot of broken wrists and ankles from the daredevil pilots that used to go down the “stairs” in the bar chairs! The book makes for good reading. My e-mail address is sullymangolf@aol.com if anyone wants more info on the “Cat” ride.