Son Number One is back in Sandy Eggo, for to share the upcoming Thanksgiving festivities – my favorite holiday – with his clan. He went hence from Chez Lex to the local Flight Standards District Office, having completed his military competency test, to receive his civil ratings: Commercial & Instrument; Single Engine Land/Rotary Wing. Which is one more rating than I’ll ever get. Old dogs and new tricks, and those things go down. They go down. It’s the complexity in it.
A flight school classmate from Whiting Field joined him there at Montgomery Field. The FSDO at Pensacola apparently charges $90 for providing naval aviators their civilian ratings, which is odd for a government servant on full-time salary, whose paid work it is to service the certification requirements of airmen. I get that an FAA-certified examiner, who is not a government employee, charges for his time. I do not grok a civil servant playing the fiddle on the backs of recently winged naval aviators.
But anyway.
After they’d gotten their temporary airman certificates, we headed out to the ramp, to see if there was summat in the rotary wing stable which they could rent, and fly. The answer is, “no”, apparently. You could sign up as a student upgrading to a flight instructor ticket, but they rent neither pigs nor helicopters. The young men – they seem painfully young – ne’er the less trod the flight line, cooing and oohing at the various fling wing assets on the line. Bell 206s, roughly analogous to the TH-57s they’d flown in training. Robinson R-22s and R-44s. Other machines whose names I disremember.
Not out of disrespect, you understand. But out of ignorance. You can only know so much.
The torch is passed, the next generation rises to catch it. Which somehow put me in mind of those things I saw along the way.
When I was an ensign, the fleet flew Phantoms, Tomcats and Corsairs. I saw a Crusader in the break at NAS Fallon as lieutenant junior grade. The FA-18 Hornet, which was to be my alternate wife for twenty years, was still going through operational test. We had fourteen carriers in the fleet, 41 (Midway), 43 (Coral Sea), 59 (Forrestal), 60 (Saratoga), 61 (Ranger), 62 (Independence), 63 (Kitty Hawk), 64 (Constellation), 65 (Enterprise – our first nuke), 66 (America), 67 (Kennedy), 68 (Nimitz), 69 (Eisenhower), and 70 (Vinson). Throw the training command carrier qualification ship in – AVT-16 (Lexington, a World War II survivor) and we had fifteen capital ships.
Out of those fifteen carriers, eleven were oil burners. Now there are none of the old breed left, and of those eleven that remain, are all nukes. They are named almost entirely for politicians; 71 (Roosevelt), 72 (Lincoln), 73 (Washington), 74 (Stennis), 75 (Truman), 76 (Reagan), 77 (Bush), 78 (Ford). In the steamship days we used to content ourselves that some things would remain broken: The hot water heater when it was cold, the cold water when it was hot. Boilers got salted. Now things mostly work. Mostly.
In the fleet, anyway. If not Washington.
When I started flying fighters, we faced MiG-21s and -23s, and feared no man who flew. Then the MiG-29 Fulcrum came along, and we became thoughtful, at least in a close-in fight. Now the Fulcrum is yesterday’s news, and the fleet is more thoughtful still. We evolve, the threat evolves to meet us. We outweigh them across the globe, but they concentrate.
Our escorts included nuclear powered cruisers, who have gone the way of all flesh, even as their conventionally powered high value assets have themselves retired. Frigates flogged the littorals – they too are all but gone, in the process of being replaced at the low end by corvettes Littoral Combat Ships. My first ship as a midshipman was the USS Nicholson (DD-982), a Spruance-class destroyer. She was the newest ship in the fleet when I joined her.
My career lasted longer.
We now have email of course, and web-browsing. Starbucks deliveries to the ship. Fresh vegetables routinely, CHT milk rarely. Command and control is via chat rather than voice circuits. The cell phones break out on the weather decks when we raise land. Much has improved.
But we used to have 15 fleet carriers and their escorts, and now we have nine. Next year, who knows?
We were once the leaders of the free world, and now we lead from behind. We seem prepared to reject those things which stiffened us, and embrace those things which soften us.
It started, I have to think, when we started naming our carriers after politicians rather than battles. Perhaps it wasn’t cause and effect – correlation does not equal causation. But it was right around then.
I left the young lieutenants junior grade to go have lunch together.
It’s their Navy now.
Small error, 69 is the Eisenhower.
Fixed, thanks. I knew it was an “E” word.
Edsel!
No?
I hate to join the nit-pick crowd, but you have Ranger and Saratoga reversed. Sinkin’ Sara was CV-60, Ranger = CV-61.
Another, only 10 of 11 are named for politicians, unless you consider Nimitz a politician.
Happy Thanksgiving and “Congratulations” to SNO!
All Admirals (and Generals) are politicians. Some more than others. Nimitz fell in the less than many category.
At least he wasn’t an elected politician.
I would argue against Washington as a politician. While he was twice elected President, he was basically drafted by the other founders, and to my knowledge, never sought an elective office before that. I would almost put Ike in that same category. Clearly not the same kind of guys that constantly chased elective office all their lives.
Au contraire…after the French and Indian war, Washington was in the House of Burgess in Lex’s home state. And Nimitz was NOT a politician! He was a warrior par excellence!
Sorry Byron, but all GOFOs are politicians. They can’t escape that trap as it comes with the stars. Not to mention all the political games they had to play to get those stars in the first place.
Ummm….Patton wrote in his diaries that Eisenhower clearly had the Presidential bug. In 1943.
I think you could make a case that this guy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFBpxB5zgnY
is not a politician nor does he care to be.
And sir, the Enterprise still has one cruise left in her…or so they’re saying.
Yeah, renting a helicopter is not trivial – a Robby – either the R22 or R44 is going to require at least 10 hours by SFAR 73 dual instruction before you can fly PIC, and that’s for a rotorcraft/helicopter rated pilot. Then most flight school insurance requires 10 hours with a school instructor prior to being able to rent. It’s not like the fixed wing world where renting the aircraft is a revenue source. And don’t even bother with trying to rent the turbines – even if you don’t mind the $850 or so an hour for a 206 (TH-57) most operators won’t rent you one – the risk out weighs the return by too much. The routine normally is just to bring an instructor along and log dual received. Once an operator is comfortable with you then they’ll rent to you solo or with pax.
Two weekends ago, a friend of mine and I drove to Stuart, Florida to attend the airshow. We had a third pilot with us for the trip who I had not met before. The drive up was pleasent as I learned more about the new guy. He grew up in Belgium, the son of a WWII military pilot. He ended up flying for the Belgiun military in single seat jet ground and sea attack then shifted over to rotary wing sea-air rescue and earned an airframe and powerplant license. After he left the military, he ran a Medevac Helicopter service in Europe and moved around doing some oil/gas exploration work. Now, I guess about 55 years old, he is the chief pilot for a private super yacht. He lives on the boat and is considered one of the crew. The boat follows a mostly predictable schedule of the Caribbean in the winter followed by a crossing to the Mediterranean for the spring and summer followed by another crossing to West Palm Beach for the fall until Christmas/New Years when it starts all over again. The single women who owns the boat, a G-5, the Eurocopter 120
http://www.google.com/search?q=Eurocopter+120&hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=BTDMTrvWE8-btweZyKGQAQ&ved=0CDcQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=599
is sadly unhappy most of the time and quite the nitpicker when it comes to paying her fuel bills. Nonetheless, as PIC and Mechanic, he flies with his boss (she) about one week per month, six months a year and other than that is moving the helo from the boat to the shore for maintenance and fuel. She (the owner) knows and understands the machine must fly regulalrly or face creeping problems so he is free to take the machine out about once a week from some cross country. Three days ago (I missed the trip) they took the EC 120 from Ft. Lauderdale to Marathon in the Keys for lunch…all the way just offshore at about 500 feet.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Marathon+Florida&rls=com.microsoft:en-us&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x88d0dc33cb6c387b:0xbcb6224194d144f7,Marathon,+FL&gl=us&ei=VDHMTp6uG4u2twf-6YGWAQ&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CGMQ8gEwAA
I was jealous.
Choppers usually fly at around 500′.
When the Army got the TH-55 in the mid 60s (also known as the Mattel Messerschmidt because Mattel made some of the plastic parts for the thing) they discovered, the hard way, that there was a slight problem. If you tucked the chin too much you ended up in a vicious circle that normally ended up with the student and IP tying the low altitude record.
Hughes was told of the problem and they did some flight testing. “Good news,” they said. “You can fly right out of it in about 1500′.” Only problem was, Army flight instruction normally took place at about 500′ agl.
what will this generation say 20 years hence? talk of UCAS and rotary assets controlling armed drones and 15,000 hr legacy Hornets limited to 3 Gs and “yeah I once saw one of those 30 F-35s”. I don’t see 20 year aviators retiring with 5000 flight hours. Sad to see how under-utilized our best and brightest will become.
Everyone is becoming soft, Lex. Even you. A fighter pilot calling choppers “machines”, instead of the approved name, “targets”?
To be fair there are 2 types of choppers: Targets and SARs. 3 if you count Airwolf but you wouldn´t even get close enough to identify her
Lex:
Not to be a picker of nits, but:”It started, I have to think, when we stopped naming our carriers after politicians rather than battles.” Don’t you mean ‘…when we started naming our carriers”…?
Paul
Yep, the holiday season is upon us, judging from the maudlin and melancholy meandering maundering I’m seeing here. So, a touch of humor. Slightly bawdy.
A gorgeous young lady meets a Marine Gunnery Sergeant in a bar. They talk; they connect; they end up leaving together. They go back to his place.
As he shows her around his apartment, she is struck by the fact that his bedroom is completely packed with literally hundreds of sweet, cuddly teddy bears which are neatly organized on three shelves running the length of the room along one wall. Small, adorable teddy bears fill the bottom shelf, cute cuddly medium-sized ones adorn the next higher shelf and Huge enormous bears are perched on the top shelf.
The woman is quite surprised that a manly Marine Gunny would have such an extensive collection of teddy bears. Although she decides not to question him about it, she’s actually quite impressed by this unexpected evidence of his sensitive side!
After another drink, she turns to him, invitingly. They kiss softly… then again. Soon their passion overwhelms them, and she leads him quietly to the bedroom.
After spending an intense night of passion with the Marine, while they are lying there together in the afterglow, the woman slowly rolls toward him and asks, smiling, “Well, how was it for you?”
Our ‘sensitive’ Marine, stifling back a slight yawn replies: “Help yourself to any prize from the bottom shelf.”
I read that one to my wife. I’ve never heard her sputter so much before. I always thought she had a sense of humor.
I ain’t even reading that one to my wife. I would have already made my last post here, and I seriously doubt you’d hear about the funeral.
That *IS* hilarious, however.
Joe, I always heard that it was a Chief not a Gunny!
Joe, I always heard it was a uber manly Green Beret… not a Chief and absolutly not a fey Gunny… Best
I always heard it was a bespectacled Intel guy…
Nah, just your typical Coastie.
I wonder about an FAA employee charging for such services. A designated examiner does, but they are not FAA employees but “civilians” allowed to give the check rides. I never heard about anything like that at the Montgomery, AL FSDO, which is the closest to Rucker pulling anything like that. I knew several guys that went there after winging to get their civil ratings.
Something is fishy, but this is FedGov we are talking about.
QM,
You and me both, brudda. Something is either very fishy or there’s some, heretofore, new licensing fee we ain’t been apprised of. If one were of the sleuthing kind, one would make an innocent call to the Pensacola FSDO asking about how to convert one’s military flight ratings and see if there’s a new “fee” for the service. Then drop a dime to the FAA’s IG office.
Lex, I suggest he call the DOT OIG hotline and file a complaint against the Pensacola FSDO. The FAA does not charge for certification services.
Contact:
If you want to report an allegation of fraud, waste, abuse, or mismanagement at the U.S. Department of Transportation, you may do so by using one of the following methods:
•Online OIG Hotline Complaint Form
•Call 1-800-424-9071 (toll free).
•E-mail to hotline@oig.dot.gov
•Mail to: DOT Inspector General, 1200 New Jersey Ave SE, West Bldg 7th Floor, Washington, DC 20590
•Online FAR Disclosure Form for Contractors
Lex, it is nice to read that your family will be together this Thanksgiving -always my favorite “family” Holiday.
Has to be a touch bittersweet though -just seeing life change as it does, regardless of our desires. Very much looking forward to seeing my grandniece back from college. Interesting times indeed, and I’ve promised to be my most diplomatic self with the clan!
It’s only right ATAC allow the man some family time before he has to out and die again.
G-man has the right take. I started this post hours ago before called away by saying: “Everyone’s missing the central theme of Lex’s post. Reading his post I’m reminded of the lyrics of a Leonard Cohen song ‘Dress Rehearsal Rag’ (from the album Songs of Love & Hate)as applied to the current state of the USN”(italics mine):
Four o’clock in the afternoon
And I didn’t feel like very much.
I said to myself, “Where are you golden boy,
And where is your famous golden touch?”
I thought you knew where all the elephants lie down,
I thought you were the crown-prince
Of of all the wheels in ivory-town,
Just take a look at your body now,
There’s nothing much left to save
And a bitter voice in the mirror cries,
“hey, prince, you need a shave.”
Now if you can manage to get
Your trembling fingers to behave,
Why don’t you try unwrapping
A stainless-steel razor blade?
That’s right, its come to this,
Yes its come to this,
And wasn’t it a long way down?
Wasn’t it a strange way down?
There’s no hot water in the room,
And the cold is running thin.
Well what did you expect from
The kind of place you’ve been living in?
Don’t drink from that cup,
It’s all caked and cracked along the rim.
That’s not the electric light, my friend,
That is your vision growing dim.
Cover up your face with soap there,
Now your santa claus.
And you’ve got a gift for anyone
Who will give you his applause.
I thought you were a racing man,
Ah, but you couldn’t take the pace.
That’s a funeral in the mirror
And it’s stopping at your face.
That’s right, its come to this,
Yes its come to this,
And wasn’t it a long way down,
Wasn’t it a strange way down?
Once there was a path
And a girl with chestnut hair
And you passed the summers
Picking all of the berries that grew there;
Oh, there were times she was just a child
And you held her in the shadows
Where the raspberries grow wild.
And you climbed the twilight mountains
And you sang about the view.
And everywhere you wandered
Love seemed to go along with you.
That’s a hard one to remember,
Yes, it makes you clinch your fist
And then the veins stand out like highways,
All along your wrist.
And yes its come to this,
Its come to this,
And wasn’t it a long way down,
Wasn’t it a strange way down?
You can still find a job
Go out and talk to a friend
On the back of every magazine
There are those coupons you can send
Why don’t you join the rosicrucians,
They can give you back your hope,
You can find your love with diagrams
On a plain brown envelope.
But you’ve used up all your coupons
Except the one that seems
To be written on your wrist
Along with several thousand dreams.
Now santa claus comes forward,
That’s a razor in his mit;
And he puts on his dark glasses
And he shows you where to hit;
And then the cameras pan,
The stand in, stunt man,
Dress-rehearsal rag,
You know this dress rehearsal rag,
It’s just a dress rehearsal rag.
The rise and fall of America. Our veins won’t be opened this time, hopefully; all of our current travails are but a warning, a “dress rehearsal” for the real thing–but there will be the “real thing” sooner or later–and probably sooner.
Once upon a time…
A bunch of us starched-wingers thought we would like to see what it was like to join the ‘fling-wing’ fraternity.
We soon found out that the operative word was “Expensive”.
We bought a surplus TH-55 (Hughes 269) and proceeded to try to get our ratings.
REALLY Bad idea.
That damned thing nickle-and-dimed us to death.
I would NEVER recommend that to anyone!
That’s why you get a job flying other people’s whirlybirds. My company paid for my certification on the S-92 and the S-76, which is definitely something I couldn’t have paid out of pocket.
Also read what I posted above. The TH-55 is dangerous in ways other choppers are not.
Instead of talking in dollar amounts for stuff for your privately owned bird, we talk about how many “aviation units” it took to accomplish. My much better half does not need a neart attack over finding out just how much Garmin nicked me for the latest toy. In proper aviation circles an “aviation unit” is about $1,000, for the improper aviation circles (you rotor heads know who you are) I would got to $10,000 at least…have a friend with a Bell 206…Wow! Can he spend money!
Instead of talking in dollar amounts for stuff for your privately owned bird, we talk about how many “aviation units” it took to accomplish. My much better half does not need a neart attack over finding out just how much Garmin nicked me for the latest toy. In proper aviation circles an “aviation unit” is about $1,000, for the improper aviation circles (you rotor heads know who you are) I would got to $10,000 at least…have a friend with a Bell 206…Wow! Can he spend money!
“We seem prepared to reject those things which stiffened us, and embrace those things which soften us.”
And therein lies the root causation of the majority of the extraordinary challenges our country faces today.
Damn.
Long time reader, first time poster.
I raise the BS flag on the feds who wanted to charge SNO the $90. I work for the agency and the only time we charge for services is when performing those services out of country for foreign air carriers, repairs stations, airman certification and the like. If in fact they are trying to charge for services, it is time to drop dime with the FAA IG office.
As far as the “It’s their Navy now” link, I’m sad to see it. My longest deployment was 8 months, and only due to war-time requirements. Bataan and many other ships are having to deploy longer not due to combat, but because we’ve cut our force so far, without a commensurate cut in our optempo. Actually, the order of that is backwards, but I digress. Did anyone read the story about SECDEF lamenting the cuts to defense the may now arise, caused by the inaction of the Supercommittee? We’ll be forced into our smallest Navy, Air Force and Army ever seen in our parents’ lifetimes. SNO’s deployments will be the longest in Naval history if we need to keep up the same defensive posture that we have now. I really don’t see any major changes to our National Defense Strategy other than abandoning Iraq and figuring out how we can do the same in Afghanistan. China and Korea…and Iran, still loom large. After I saw the story, no less than 3 different reports from the MSM slammed the SECDEF’s points. Each one reported that he overstated the case, weakly proclaiming that cuts are perfectly acceptable since our air forces are much better than they’ve ever been, weapons are more capable, and so forth.
To: Neptunus Lex From: Former AK-2
The U.S.S. Saratoga was CVA-60,not CVA-61!! Other wise,always a great read.
Seems like a buncha people got it in for Lex these days.
I’ve always believed it’s not so much the dog in the fight, it’s the fight in the dog.
….but I DO get your point
…“CHT milk”…!
Lex makes an uncaught funny! CHT is where the milk winds up. UHT (Ultra High Temperature!) Pasteurized milk which comes in a squarish container that needs no refrigeration. Uh, and the flavor might resemble something living near said Collection Holding Tank.
Have a great Thanksgiving with your son!
I was aboard the Franklin D Roosevelt, CVA-42. Long gone now. Another politician. My brother was aboard the Midway. She too gone, but not to the scrap heap like mine. Seems like the US is headed to the scrap heap of History.
My Dad was on the FDR around ’49-’50 as an AM.
Great piece of writing.
“It started, I have to think, when we stopped naming our carriers after politicians rather than battles.”
Little things matter.
I have seen the generational shift in AFGHN where you can go into the MWR and watch troops who walk patrols in the most dangerous places play ” Call of Duty ” on thier down time…
The issue Lex raises is also part of what I call the ” Hippies Revenge ” – The Hippies were spurned by society as shallow, without merit and self-centered hedonists. Rightly so. They didn’t take the rejection lightly and as they aged, went into education, the media and other fields while raising a generaion of kids who were taught, ” It’s all about you…you are very special….everybody wins..etc.” and other such crap.
The OWS crowd is that generation and their “helicopter parents” constantly hovering in the distance are the product of the Hippies Revenge. Kids aren’t allowed to be kids and the nanny-state is the goal of the elder hippies as they want to inflict their vision of society on us.
” We were once the leaders of the free world, and now we lead from behind. We seem prepared to reject those things which stiffened us, and embrace those things which soften us.,
That is exactly what the Hippies wanted, and they have succeeded on some levels. The fight ain’t over and those of us who know will keep fighting.
I award you +1 Internets for the “Lonesome Dove” reference on we don’t rent pigs. I too have returned to the windswept tundra of Wisconsin, for to teach my children new words when the Packers defeat the Lions.
We have $15 trillion in debt spent on what…giveaways? Pork barrel rest stops and monuments to tolerance?
Our hollow force is becoming more hollow than a chocolate Easter bunny. One example I give are the Air Force fighter wings. Once they had three squadrons. Now, with a few exceptions, just two. The F-15 is ancient. Yet there are not enough Raptors to replace them. The F-16 is nearly as old. There definitely won’t be enough F-35s to replace them. It’s a little better on the Navy side, but I think the airedales are going to be all Super Hornet, all the time, or nothing at all. We have all of this Cold War-era kit that we need to replace. The Elder Bush and Cheney kicked that can down the road and gave us the “peace dividend,” which was slushed into the sucking maw of entitlements. They also gave the Coast Guard a RIF.
Clinton, too busy messing with interns and bombing Kosovo, kicked that can down the road. Bush kicked that can down the road so we could go into Iraq. And Afghanistan. Obama, well, the Community Agitator is too busy spending that on shovel-ready projects to take on the project of rebuilding our military. Let’s also not forget he is the product of the Hippie Reject Scum and their monopoly on the education system. He hates the military and would rather spend those dollars buying votes. God knows what he’ll do in his second term.
Thanks a lot, GOP. They’re the Washington Generals of politics. A comedic foil to the Democratic/Marxist party.
After reading the new comments, I see no one has mentioned the CVN-79 has been named “JFK”, a continuation of the policy, there is a petition out to name it Enterprise, prolly doomed to failure. Looking back, I see that I have “trapped aboard”, albeit as a passenger, 12 of the 14 carriers present when Lex was starting out and only 2 of the 11 in service today, or 3 if the Enterprise is counted. The baton was passed…..
What’s even more revolting, to my mind, than naming ships after politicians, is naming ships after politicians who are still alive. It’s like those guys are royalty, or something.
There was absolutely nothing wrong with the previous system.
When they were trying to think of a name for the last carrier, I suggested, right here on this blog, Curtis LeMay, just to be contrary.
But then I’m the guy who bought an orange t-shirt just to wear on St. Patrick’s day.
JTG/
Orange on St Pats Day? LOL. I’ve known several people in my time who wear orange ties and/or vests to work on St. Pats Day either because they’re hard-core Protestants or just to be perversely contrarian. (Unless they’re Univ of Tennessee grads/Vols fans, that is..) Seems like there’s always one in every crowd–the perversely opinionated that is…Vols fans are for some reason relatively rare north of the Mason-Dixon line…probably because of that damned song “Rocky Top.”–like fingers on black-boards..
I was about ten bucks short on an eBay bid for a Coldstreamers tunic – I wanted it for St. Patrick’s Day. There was an Irish themed pub in Santa Rosa I wanted to wear it to.
Heh. I knew a guy who owned an orange blazer with “UT” embroidered on it. When he wore it on St. Paddy’s Day and people asked him what that stood for, he would say, “Ulster Tech.”
A carrier named the LeMay would hilarious. I’d bet old Iron A$$ would get a laugh out of it as well. The irony, given LeMay’s statement that the “Soviets a the opponent, the Navy is the enemy” would be delicious.
Bene there done that ! Ran the e’vaps on DiamondHead (AE-19). Seems like another life it was so long ago. 2 Med Cruises and never had enough water ! Had to constantly buy water from the locals !
Lex,
Dam we are getting old. My first deployment was ’75 in USS FORRESTAL CVA 59 as a RAN in RA-5C’s. Loved that jet.
Before that carqual’d in INDEPENDENCE with Crusaders, Corsairs, Phantoms, Whales and Intruders.
Congrats with SNO. You’re right…it is their Navy; but we both know that whatever gets thrown at them, they’ll rise above it all and do us proud. Its in the blood.
MikeyB