I had to determine the fuel in the plane, how many fuel tanks were on it and how full they were, add up all the ordinance, total everything, and show that value on a small grease board to the pilot. The pilot would give you a thumbs up. I never made a mistake in this job, so I don’t know what they would have done if I got the weight wrong!
Funny, I don’t remember who I gave that number to. They needed it to calibrate the strength of the steam catapult so they wouldn’t rip the nose gear off, or do a cold cat shot into the ocean.
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First, I congratulate you on having a fantastic memory and a talent for writing! I’ve been reading this thread you started for a couple of hours! I finished active duty in 1962, and it is amazing to me how much detail I remember from that time as an 18-20 y/o. Those were the years I became a man, learned how to be responsible and a leader.
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Next, I want to respond regarding your comments above about the aircraft weight before launch.
I joined the USNR at 17, so drilled one weekend a month in a VP squadron at NAS Dallas. After graduation from HS and becoming 18, I was on active duty. Made high scores on battery tests and was offered any Navy school...but that would have required me to extend my active enlistment (which was only 2 years). Of course, as a new 18 y/o E-2 Airman App. with no real boot camp or other Navy training beyond correspondence courses, I just wanted to stick to the contract and then go home. I said no and was assigned to fill a billet as a Yeoman on CVA-42 (FDR), V-2 Division.
Joined ship in Brooklyn ship yard and was officed with Div. Chief and Cdr. Chief was Sr. CPO on ship and also Chief MAA. Ship went to sea 3 months later and times became much busier for us in Catapults.
During carrier quals near GITMO, I worked on flight deck during air operations. Started out running the boom to retrieve the bridal after each launch and throw it into the catwalk and diving in before the next launch. ...Quite scary at first to run hard down that boom that was only about 3-4 feet wide, 60 ft. above water with only small safety nets. I eventually worked at other Cat flight deck tasks during the trials (hooking up the bridal and holdback bar), but I also watched the deck edge operator carefully.
When trials/quals were completed, I was no longer required to work the flight deck unless we were short-handed. I spent time during flight operations with headphones on and standing by the cat console to watch the operator (E-5). After a few days he let me (E-3) operate the console while he watched. ***here’s where I finally get to addressing your comment at the top***
Over the headphone, the deck edge guy would start talking as soon as an aircraft was launched. ***He would tell be the next aircraft type and gross weight. I used my knee to begin filling the accumulator in the hangar bay with steam. I then looked at a chart on my console to see the total steam pressure needed for that weight.*** As the deck edge man sent progressive info on prep of next plane for launch, I would use a crank to move catapult to launch position, with final crank coming after the Cat Officer bent to a knee and pointed to the bow. I would then repeat building up the steam for next launch.
Thank you, octex for the compliment, and thanks for serving!
(by the way-I did a short stint on the FDR back in the Seventies when my squadron sent a detachment of planes on her-I honestly can’t remember much about it, but I do recall she was not in good shape at that time. IIRC, she was the first of the three Midway class to be decommissioned.)
So-you had that critical job that simply COULD NOT be screwed up. If you make a mistake there, hear the wrong thing, or let your latent dyslexia intrude and dial in “33,750” instead of “37,350”, the plane goes into the drink and a pilot dies.
Someone may calculate the wrong number. Someone may give you the wrong number. But if you don’t dial in the right number...I knew that the information had to end up in the hands of one of the 2nd Division guys like you who manually set the equipment, but I couldn’t remember how it got to you.
Did the pilot have his own weight calculation he did, written on his knee, and I was just a check for him to double-check against? Did the pilot tell someone over the radio what it was after checking with me? Or did I give that number to someone who would tell you and also verify it with the pilot before setting it? In recounting it, I recalled it was an important task that they didn’t give to the screw-ups. (and we all knew who those guys were)
You had it right, “those were the years I became a man, learned how to be responsible and a leader”.
I had an interesting thing happen to me a few years back. I went to some kind of corporate team building thing, and one of the exercises was to pull a coin out of your pocket, and look at the date on the coin. (I think this may have been around 2010 or something like that)
You were supposed to recall what happened in your life that year, and relate it to the group.
So I pulled a quarter out of my pocket. It had the date 1978 on it.
The two years, 1977-1978 were red-letter years for me.
I was not a screw up growing up, but it was hard for me. I was a terrible student, couldn’t do well in school for a variety of reasons, and I didn’t have a great deal of self-esteem or confidence. I was gawky, wore the black plastic glasses we referred to in the Navy as “BCD Glasses” (Birth Control Device Glasses) and...just had trouble being a kid. I just didn’t understand why growing up had to be so damn awkward and painful.
When I joined the Navy, I found out I wasn’t a total dumbass. There were guys who were dumber and less capable than me, and there were, of course, guys who were sharper and more capable than me.
But what I found in the military that I appreciated, was that if you were competent, responsible, and did things well, you didn’t stay in the same place doing the same job. Like water finding its level, you would get moved to jobs that were more demanding or which demanded more responsible and reliable people doing them.
For me, as I made that transition between jobs, always moving up while many people stayed in somewhat the same place, I came to realize that someone else was telling me how good they thought I was. It wasn’t me THINKING I was good. It was other people TELLING me I was good, and doing it by the most democratically based action possible, groups of people making decisions to move people around.
I gained confidence and at the end of my tour, I realized I wanted to continue where I had always wanted to go, to college, and into the sciences somewhere. (What is now called STEM). But I knew I couldn’t handle college for STEM, and certainly not the math part of it, something I went to summer school for several years for. And at this time in the Navy, when I made that decision to leave and go back to the civilian world, I had another one of those incidents in life where someone seems to be looking out for you. In this case, it was a teacher coming when the pupil was finally ready. I was working on that special project with the engine manufacturer, and the technical representative was a young guy of perhaps 30 years old. His name was Jerry Wouters of Detroit Diesel Allison, and we had a great working relationship and became very close. One day, he asked what I planned to do in life, and when It told him I wanted to go into science, but knew I could never master the necessary math, he perked up and said “I am teaching college level math courses to the other sailors on this ship during the deployment. Why don’t you sign up, and I can help you. I’ll tutor you.”
So I did. And I got a grade of B in that college level algebra course. You have no idea what that did for me. It made me realize that if I put my mind to something, even something I thought was impossible, I could do it. Over the years, I tried to find Jerry Wouters to thank him, with no success. And after the Internet came into our lives, I kept searching, and eventually found his name somewhere. I wrote him a long letter of gratitude for what he had done, but never heard back. He may have been deceased by that time, I don’t know. But I would like to think he got it, and knew how he had changed someone’s life. I could never have gone to college without his help.
When I was in high school, my parents were on me to go to college. They couldn’t afford it, but they would have gone to the ends of the earth to get me that money, even another mortgage on the house. But I knew I couldn’t go. In my mind at that time, a “D to C” student throughout my schooling, I would have flunked out.
I always revered and nearly hero-worshiped my dad, a 30 year navy officer, so I decided to enlist, and the night I told my best friend, as he looked through a car door at me with a freshly broken nose from playing hockey and asking me for a ride to the hospital, I told him I was joining the Navy. He said “F**k it! I’m going with you!” Best thing both of us ever did.
And when I told my parents, they were warmly accepting and approved. I think they knew, in their hearts, I was not college material.
So, some thirty years later, I am sitting in this corporate team building exercise, staring down at the date “1978” on this quarter and dwelling on what I did that year, and what it meant to me, as you said...
I grew up.
That was the year I realized the future for me wasn’t a black, unforeseeable hole. I was a man, I knew what I was, I knew that I was capable and could learn, and I was free to chart my own course in life and was up to the task of standing at the helm and doing just that.
So, as I was pondering this, I was jolted out of it as the person, who had been asking each person in turn what that year on the coin meant for them, I found myself unable to speak.
I was overcome with emotion thinking of that time in my life where I made that transition.
As you said, I had learned how to be a man, how to be responsible, and how to be a leader. And thinking of it choked me up and left me unable to speak.
I knew almost all the people there, and they were puzzled by it, and possibly, a little embarrassed because they had no idea. Some time later I would tell some of them individually just what had gone through my mind that day.
But I think you know. And I think most people who have gone into the military know. I didn’t have to die in combat to gain that awareness, and for that, I am grateful. But I did learn.