When I was going through my initial FRS CQ in the FA-18 – the first time we, as fledgling naval aviators would land aboard ship at night – the landing signal officers were careful to explain to us that we might, or might not see combat but that we would of a certainty see the back end of the ship. It was a LCDR Lyons, if I recall correctly, who spoke with an easy economy of words sprinkled with stout, Anglo Saxon derivatives. “Goon this up,” he said encouragingly, “and you could no-sh!t die.”
He had our attention.
Off to one side of the LSO classroom was a picture that also caught my attention. It was a snapshot of an F7U Cutlass pilot having a very bad day.
Although I was at that time a mere novice, it appeared to me certain that 1) the plane would be a write-off, 2) the pilot would most likely buy it as would, 3) the sailors there in the port catwalk but that, 4) the LSO, having chosen an unconventional escape route across the flight deck, might just get away with it.
The classroom picture served a dual role, I think. It reminded the aviators both novice and veteran of the stakes in the game. But that was, until today, all that I knew about it.
From Wikipedia we learn that the F7U was considered only marginally suitable for carrier operations, and that its pilots liked to joke that the Westinghouse engines put out less heat than the company’s toasters. We also learn that the pilot was on LCDR Jay Alkire, who perished not in the immediate crash but moments afterward, when the plane went over the port side and slipped into the sea. Also killed were two aviation bosun’s mates and a photographer’s mate – although not, as it appears in this rather morbid video at around the 2:19 mark, the man just to the right in the picture above.
This Flickr photo sequence makes it look like the LSO got away, although not with much time to spare. This page dedicated to the USS Hancock verifies that he escaped (his name was Ted Reilly), that Alkire was the squadron XO and that VF-124 lost 5 of 16 pilots on that 1955-56 deployment. Which I imagine made for rather a somber ready room environment.
Interesting thing, the web. Twenty years ago I could not have pulled so much information out of a dimly remembered photograph on a lazy Sunday morning – it would have been days and weeks of tough slogging through dispersed archives and interviews. Had the technology come along 20 years later many of the voices that contributed to the memory stream might have been silenced.
Our children will never know a time when knowledge was not so instantly available.
Hollers the four year old from upstairs, “Dad! Can you reset the router? Explorer’s locked up again!” The seven year old shouts down, “Dad! AVG wants to do an update and Adobe is being a pain”.
They are fearless of HW/SW (bulletproof and invincible); thank goodness for UAC and WWW parental controls.
You’re absolutely right about instant access to information. I’ll tell ya though, we’ve all become a bunch of know-it-alls! Makes the dinner table, conference room and office chatter pretty interesting. It’s amazing how so many people know a little about so many topics. (tongue in cheek, I include myself). Hear something in a conversation you wish you knew more about? Search away, check four or five sites, voila, there ya go.
As an unabashed hypocrite who pretty much only uses the internet anymore I honestly miss something about having to walk to the local library as a kid and sit there and read a book. I also wonder if the instant availability of info and the superficiality of most sites relative to a book isn’t shortening our attention spans and depth of knowledge. But still, the changes in my brief life so far are indeed amazing.
Lex,
The USS Midway Museum aircraft restoration team is working on a Cutlass right now. If you drive over to their hangar aboard NASNI you can see the fuselage and tail assembly coming back to life.
Oh–and you reminded me I have some overdue library books!
Lex, any idea why LT CDR Alkire didn’t eject? It looks like he should have punched as soon as the nose rose over the ramp.
Prolly his ROD was still outside the envelope of those crappy early seats. Attitude doesn’t equal performance (beaten into me over the barren plains south of Runge and Nordheim).
Some more on the Cutlass (aka “Ensign Eliminator”) here.
re: Our children will never know a time when knowledge was not so instantly available.
That’s assuming we don’t have an EMP event, of course. But information access will be the least of our worries, should that happen. Sorry for the downer on a beautiful Sunday…
Many Navy officers and pilots went to law school after they left the service–and decided to practice in San Diego. As a young lawyer in the late 60’s several of them were in my firm. One of them (UCLA undergrad, then into the Navy) had been a pilot in an F7U squadron. I guess the bird scared him enough to leave the Navy at the end of his initial service obligation. He said that the Fleet had trouble maintaining the aircraft–a combination of lots of hydraulic leaks and 19 year old enlisted farmboy mechanics from Kentucky!
Hey, you’d be suprised what 19 year old enlisted farmboy mechanics from Kentucky can do!! One thing I’ve definitely learned in my Navy experience is never underestimate a motivated sailor. You’d also be suprised how many of them at the end of their elevnty-th 16 hour day in a row will just shrug their shoulders and say that Navy life is easier than the farm.
You do a great job of furthering the elitist perception of those practicing law. Though take that with a grain of salt, I was 22 and only from an Illinois farm before I started flying for the Navy.
But just think, guys, the view out of the front window of the F7U’s office was spectacular! (For the better to see all the impending doom.
)
All I could think about while watching was the poor guys flying the planes. “Oh, no… look out… oh, sh!t.” It hurts to watch!
Axial/straight deck (with ‘paddles LSO’?) “Hancock commenced conversion and modernization to an attack aircraft carrier in Puget Sound 15 December 1951 and was reclassified CVA-19, 1 October 1952. She recommissioned 15 February 1954, Captain W. S. Butts in command. She was the first carrier of the United States Fleet with steam catapults capable of launching high performance jets.
She was off San Diego 7 May 1954 for operations along the coast of California that included the launching 17 June of the first aircraft to take off from a United States carrier by means of a steam catapult. After a year of operations along the Pacific coast that included testing of Sparrow I and Regulus missiles and Cutlass jet aircraft, she sailed 10 August 1955 for 7th Fleet operations ranging from the shores of Japan to the Philippines and Okinawa. She returned to San Diego 15 March 1956 and decommissioned 13 April for conversion that included the installation of an angled flight deck (wood?).”
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/navy_legacy_hr.asp?id=36
Actually and amazingly, nobody else was seriously injured in Alkire’s crash according to the accident report. It was pretty clear what was going to happen so everybody on the port side got inside in time. Also not widely reported is that the Cutlass deployments that were made on angled decks went well and were the first with the Sparrow missile.
When I saw the headline the Cessna 172RG popped into my head, not the Navy jet.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not knocking 19 year old farmboys from Kentucky. In the hands of a competent CPO–of which there are way more than a few in the Navy– those 19 year old kids can do wonders. My lawyer friend’s comment re 19 year old farmboys–actually he said “barefoot” farmboys was that they taught him as a young Ensign/ J.G. a lot about leadership. And he’d been a bit of a farm boy himself having grown up in Visalia not all that far from Lemoore.
That’s cool, didn’t think you were knocking them. But since, due to my officer community, they pretty much make or break me and I work side by side with them I’ve never ceased to be amazed (and incredibly thankful!) to see them at their best, and feel it’s the least I can do to put a good word in for the junior enlisted whenever I can in return. Cheers!
That clip is typical of many you will find in the 45 minute video “No Easy Days” which seems an appropriate title about Naval Aviation, and followed a book with the same name.
Of course, the same title might be used to capture the state of manufacturing in The U.S. within the past year.
I’d lay you odds that if wasn’t for those 19 year old enlisted farmboy mechanics from Kentucky that F7U would have had a much shorter career and spent even less time in the air.
Out of deference for the preponderance of reasonable and former blue tile sorts I respect who (host) and frequent this forum, I’ll leave the comments about prep school and private college grads who found imaginative ways to damage and unnecessarily “down” a/c we’d worked all night to get “up.” The NFO CO will remain nameless who snuck a UA personal tool kit (the one he wouldn’t allow any other NFO’s to carry) into the aircraft. No mention of how he damaged mission essential equipment in a way even 19 year old enlisted farmboy mechanics couldn’t recover for another forum. No mention of how he let W/C210 take the fall (he admitted to Grumman Tech Rep at end of cruise) and even participated in the inquisition and let the shop sup (up for chief) take the hit at review time for signing off the previous VIDS/MAF. Had to put a request all the way to Bethpage during Wespac to get a replacement for that IFF interrogator cabinet…
Yeah, I learned a bit about leadership from that.
… and yeah, even after 20 years broad strokes about my white hat shopmates get an slightly intemperate knee jerk reaction. Trust me, we knew who the knuckleheads were in our shop and as shop Supe’s policed them just fine, thank you very much. Kept ‘em off the roof, out of the aircraft and whenever possible them TAD to MA, laundry or Mess Decks. At worst, we’d limit them to corrosion duties under close supervision (yeah, I could still name names
).
Oof, there’s a reason they’re called “sacrificial connectors”…and another reason why I lament the passing of the FT from the E-2 community.
- SJS
Thank’s for that FT vote.
dw
AT1, EAWS, NAC, IFT
My father was always amazed at how many midwestern folks joined the Navy. I found it to be true as well. I was born in Iowa, and the other two AW’s on my crew were also Iowans. Out of the 12 men on my first crew, not one was from a state bordering the ocean.
My job as an AW not only included attending the brief & debrief, and operating all the sensors at my station, but helping to take care of the bird as well. Putting on fuel, loading stores, making coffee, plug&covers, vacuuming, washing, etc etc etc. Then there was all the collateral duty on days we weren’t flying. So, yeah… there’s that.
To be honest, I rarely minded the long hours. I truly loved my job. Heck, as an LPO, how many 20-something folks get to have a leadership position over 28 other fellows?
There are always a couple sad sacks in every unit, but the overwhelming majority of those 19+ year olds are above-average and certainly above the ones who decided to stay home.
Anyway, that’s enough of a ramble for now..
AW1Tim/
May have told it here before, but one of my best friend’s father (unfortunately now passed away) was an F6F/F4U pilot in WWII who was from Kansas. At a dinner party once I noted the great mid-western affinity for the Navy (Joe Foss from N. Dakota, etc.) and he related to me his induction physical story: “Yeah”, he said, “When I was going thru the line to get my induction physical in Santa Monica the Navy Doc asked me where I was from in a friendly, pass-the-time-away manner. When I replied ‘Kansas’ he exclaimed: KANSAS!! What’s it with you people from Kansas? Every third guy in line I see is from G-Damned Kansas!” LOL, Tim, I guess guys from the land-locked mid-west just want to see some liquid blue!
That is one of those occasions where, while you know yer along for the ride, you also know that you’re outside the envelope, you’ve gooned it up in some form or fashion, you’re gonna die, and the best that you can try is try to minimize the collateral damage. As opposed to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIci8l7TJFs
where the young’un just didn’t listen and/or respond.
Interesting label on that: It’s actually a training command T-2C Buckeye. That was a bad day.
I actually know the whole story about that Buckeye crash – I checked in to CTW – 1 and became the CTW LSO about 2 months after the accident. The throttles in that T-2 somehow stuck after a power reduction rolling into the groove on the SNA’s VERY FIRST PASS behind the ship. It was a great start, just a little long in the groove. The mishap investigation confirmed that the young pilot was trying to give it MRT and the engines weren’t responding. His only shot would have been to angle away from the ship and eject no later than in the middle of the pass. Of course, everyone who’s ever landed on a CV knows that the first pass feels so uncomfortable and disorienting that encountering an emergency that has never been briefed is not likely to lead to rapid, outside the box thinking. I’m sure he knew something didn’t feel right, but was so focused on the ship that he couldn’t quite process it.
I knew all the LSO’s on the platform – and the Lex’s Air Boss – well. The irony is that the pilot’s response to the LSO’s very late “Come Left” call surely led to the adverse yaw departure that rolled the jet right and into the island. That LSO agonized over that one for awhile – but who’s got the presence of mind in that situation to say “Right for Lineup” thinking that the departure will roll the plane away from the ship?!
The Air Boss told me later that he was sure the jet was coming right into PriFly. BTW – one final note because you see all those canopies being jettisoned. The T-2 didn’t have a 0/0 ejection seat. All the SNA’s parked next to the island had the situational awareness (or at least good sense to copy the first one) to jettison their canopies, shut down, climb out and run.
A very bad day.
Chip
One thing where YOU goon it up, another when you do everything right and it ends like this. When your Maker calls, you go, and ain’t a whole lot you can do. I wonder if any of the other SNAs watching called it quits after that.