Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." -- John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Caesar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friedrich Nietzsche
"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."--Edmund Burke
“You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.”--General Sir Charles Napier
"Μολὼν λαβέ" -- Leonidas
"Blogito Ergo Sum" -- Neptunus Lex
I do believe it is the “Scorpions” of VAQ132. Been following this a bit. I was a “Patriot” VAQ140 when I retired. I’m going to miss those big uglies with the football on the tail.
When the first Growler rolled out last year, it was a bit hard for an old Whidbey Island hand to take 129′s colours on a plastic jet.
Cheap shots are now over. Even the newest Prowlers were getting long in the tooth. I know that a few years ago, northrup-Grumman reopened the line at St. Augustine to build outer wings. See, I can’t even bring myself to capitalize the word in front of Grumman. Three tours in A6s will do that to a guy.
But like Dylan said, the times they are a changin’. Even in our Navy, Lex. Drying tear from the eye right now.
Glen/
Didn’t they deep-six a whole bunch of PERFECTLY GOOD taxpayer-paid latest mod.Prowlers with the new wings off a pier in Fla. just so no one would try to extend Prowler usage once “the decision”
had been made to go the Growler route?
Or am I imagining things? Or was it just the wings? What’s the straight skinny?
I don’t know about Prowlers being sunk but there were 25 or so Inntruders that Boeing Defense rewinged with composite wings in the late 80s and early 90s that were used as an artificial reef off of the Carolinas somewhere.
Glen’
THAT’s what I was remembering! So here were the very finest of the remaining attack Intruders deep-sixeed rather than leave them around as evidence as to what a superior (in terms of range, payload, etc.) strike ac it was. My point is that the decision to deep-six the entire A-6 Intruder msn was strictly a bean-counter thing, NOT military effectiveness thing. As maintenance hrs & assoc. costs were rising on these older birds, the bean-counters didn’t want to suck money away from the F-18, so justified the buy by building the A version even though had shorter legs requiring more tanker assets, etc. Once again it’s side-by-side- seating didn’t sit well with the Navy’s fighter mafia any more than did the F-111s for the Air Force.
So perfectly not just good, but superior, aircraft were sacrificed under the rubric of cost-control–and all those tax-payer dollars wasted to upgrade the wings.
100% qual rate. Surprising: I heard the Shocker was a real pig behind the boat.
Patriots were in my airwing CVW7 when I cruised with them in 98. Good guys all. No matter what, the plastic is soo much prettier than the old drumstick. good new capabilities
CVW-7 was onboard my first ship. USS Independence CV62 in 1974-1977. The fighter outfits were 33 and 102, F-4J and now it’s replacement is gone! And then at the end of my career, I was in CVW-7. One other First Class in 140 and I had been young blueshirts aboard Independence together. It does come full circle.
Gettin’ a bit long in the tooth sux, doesn’t it?
My active duty tour (74-78) in the Marines was spent working on expeditionary airfields (land based aircraft carrier), with the majority being spent at Kaneohe. As a result, I watched and trapped literally thousands of aircraft; wish I had kept a log.
Being way out in the middle of the Pacific made us a stopover for every squadron headed for points west/east. F-4J/N/RF-4B, A-4M, AV-8A, A-6E, a few A-3′s, and even the odd Stoof would come through. F-14 was the new kid on the block, although we didn’t see any pass through K-Bay, and the F-18 was still pretty much in the design phase as the F-4 replacement. We scoffed then thinking “How are you going to replace the Phantom?” *sigh* What did we know? Harriers are the only type left.
Some days I feel like one of the old-timers wearing a squadron ballcap at a airshow, wondering where the hell the time went and envying the new toys these kids get to play with.
Cool looking jet… (2 seater or 1?) Thought the same about the EA6B’s too. I guess if you can love Hummers, everything else is easy….
threadjack – for a good reason for the Macophiles:
iPhone HUD
/threadjack
VAQ-132 is the first to finish conversion to the Growler. Next up is VAQ-141 the Shadowhawks, after that it is kind of up in the air since the next three squadrons that are supposed to be in the pipeline are on deployment for 8+ months. So School seats for VFA-106 and VFA-122 along with the E/F seats at CNATTU Lemoore and Ocean-Banana are being fought over.
Once the decision to go Growler was made, a few of the older platforms that were nearing high time were deep sixed to create an artifical reef. The plan is that every squadron that returns from a deployment and starts conversion will have thier EA-6B’s looked over. If they are nearing high time for airframe or wings then the planes will be sent to the desert. If not then the planes will be sent either to one of the three concrete squadrons or to the Marines. The Marines as of right now have not bought into the EF-18G. Last Tailhook I went to in 2005 the Commadant for air talked about acquiring F-35′s and moding them or using UCAV’s to replace the EA-6B in Marine inventory.
I built the flaps and slats for those A-6s, when I worked for Kaman Aerospace in Jacksonville. They said that the wings would be good for another 20 years.
So, if I’m reading this right, VAQ 132 is based at Whidbey, but qual’ed over in the Atlantic. Is that common? Are all the Growlers going to be at Whidbey or will there be Atlantic Fleet Squadrons on the East Coast?
Idaho Joe, sometimes, it’s easier to fly 4 jets to the East Coast when a carrier is available for quals than it is to wait for a West Coast carrier to open up.
Everything I’ve heard is that Whidbey will be the sole Shocker base, since all the Electronic Attack infrastructure is there.
NAS Whidbey has been the home port of the Electronic Attack Community since 70′s and the introduction of the EA-6B. Prior to that the home ports were Alameda (back when we flew EA-3B’s), Quonset Point in Rhode Island (VAQ-33), NAF Agna in Guam (VAW-13 later VAQ-13). The only other two places that electronic attack are based out of is a Reserve Squadron at NAF Washington DC (VAQ-209), and a VAQ forward deployed at NAF Atsugi(VAQ-136). All the USMC birds are homeported at MCAS Cherry Point. There was talk of moving all the USN VAQ to Lemoore, but that was stopped because of $$$ and no space at Lemoore.
Most of the time the training squadron, or RAG, goes to a West Coast Ship for money reasons. It is cheaper to travel vertically rather then hortizionally. Also most of the time they try and combine RAG CQ dets together. So if VAQ-129 goes out thethen VFA-122 goes out as well. However, since most of the west coast is either deployed or in the yards, they had to go east to get the required CQ dets out of the way. VAQ-132 tagged along, talking to an assoicate of mine, and got thier required CQ qualifications done as a squadron with their EF-18G during that same training detachment. It is kind of a pain the in arse to go to the east coast from Whidbey. Since you fly all day, don’t get to Norfolk till late at night. Unpack into a berthing. Go to bed only to wake up and have to set up the shops. Hope to finish before lunch and then break for some quick liberty in town before the boat secures liberty. After which the next morning you pull out and the first plane is usually scheduled for a ramp time right around lunch.
Thanks for the follow-ons. Now, do the pilot and NFO have to wear Lead underwear with all those electronics lit up?
No…they just all have a family of girls…..
LOL. But you wouldn’t believe the tingling sensations when you turn the jammers to RADIATE.
EA-6B’s will be around well beyond 2020 if you can believe it. Expeditionary role I’m sure. There are some things a go-fast jet with 1 hr of unrefueled airtime can’t perform, probably.
Ask the Marines.
b2