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The news of the day is not so much fun, is it? And it’s been a while since I’ve shared any new sea stories – apparently because I either don’t have any, or don’t remember them – but it occurs to me that certain occasional readers may not be aware of some old ones. [...]  For some reason last night, Yeoman Seaman Locastro was haunting my memories. He was the Ops Yeoman in my first line squadron, my first deployment – more than 20 years ago. As such, he spent a lot of time in the ready room, where all the pilots prepared and briefed their flights, did their [...] Got a letter from an occasional reader today, a letter from the old days it seems. Back before there were strike fighter pilots to ease the burden of self-regard that simple fighter pilots labored under. I thought it would be worth sharing – it’s a very short story: One day, long, long ago there [...] I have been forced away from the laptop to the study by SWMBO v3.0, and while awaiting the creaking and wheezing of the auncient G4 Mac as it updated itself to the very latest standards of system software, my restless eyes fell on my military flight log books, sitting there on a shelf, dusty [...] It’s funny the way that things associate in your mind. I’ve been flying a little bit these days, all under visual meteorological conditions, since practically the only instruments kept up to snuff in the Vargas we fly are the altimeter and airspeed indicators. Not like the little planes were ever intended for instrument flight. [...] Here’s a charmingly told story of a commercial airline pilot taking a turn or two in holding while hoping for the best at his filed destination. What it lacks in the kind of immediacy that goes with a 40-foot SAM zipping past your canopy like a bottle rocket or a hairy recovery behind the ship on a moonless night with the deck moving around it gives back with quiet professionalism and the implicit responsibility for hundreds of souls. Souls whose only conjunction is that their fate rests in the hands of two men whose names they were told on pushback from the gate. Men whose names they immediately forgot. The rules and regulations intended to minimize the drama attendant to landing at a faraway place are legion. Routes and fuel requirements are planned down to a gnat’s eyelash and winds and weather are factored in as best they can be, but old King Chaos is a merry old soul, and he will have his play at the dice. To have an IFR license is to be offered multiple opportunities over the years to demonstrate both skill and judgment. Good judgment comes from experience of course, and experience – especially for single seat aviators – is often the bastard child of bad judgment. I had a beer last Friday with an old friend, like me recently retired as a captain. We were roommates back in the day along with a third brother of a another mother, as lieutenants aboard the USS Constellation. A thousand years ago, or it might as well have been. A lifetime ago. Do [...] In naval aviation, there are only two permissible places for a maintenance tool: In a technician’s hand, or in his tool box. There is a tool inventory before each job, and a tool inventory afterwards. If a tool is found missing, the entire squadron is grounded until the tool is found. Because it’s got [...] I was deeply engrossed in work this afternoon when Son Number One surreptitiously penetrated my vital area unobserved. I started when he spoke, and he smiled, asking if he’d frightened me. I don’t frighten, I replied, with serene equanimity. Although occasionally I might startle. But that’s not entirely true. I’d label it perhaps more [...] The Navy’s annual fitness reports make 95% of us look like top 5 per centers. You have to really read between the lines to know the straight skinny. By the time you’re a senior lieutenant, words like “demonstrates unlimited potential” mean you’re being damned with faint praise. After a while, you’re not supposed to [...] |
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