Well obviously you have deck experience. But experience backing hearsay is not persuasive. And the evidence is not conclusive. Again you reference a diagram and low quality film with confusing angles. I have seen it. It is not clear, it is not a case clincher.
There is no way outside of a civilian court room to prove the causal element of Forrestal. But a preponderance of evidence, both direct and circumstantial points to Ltjg. McCain as a hot head scumbag who thinks he’s entitled to provilege. And Senator NcCain is the same.
rlmorel I pinged you because you worked flight decks and maybe you can explain this better. As much as I dislike John McCain there is no way he was the cause directly or indirectly of the CV 59 fire. You may have to go back a couple of my post to understand why I'm posting this.
Hostage, I don't have flight deck experience I was a Snipe. I worked in machinery spaces. But I do know the basics about carriers and carrier fire fighting as I was a fire fighter on a carrier. I've seen the footage from that fire. BTW McCain was a LT Commander 0-4 rank not a LT Junior Grade 0-2 rank. I say that because there is a huge difference between the skills and knowledge of a LTJG and LT Commander.
Look at this picture linked here CVA-59 fire deck camera The plane #603 on the left with tail exposed is straight across from the Aft Catapults. If McCain's plane was launching it would be across from the back of that plane. No planes are there. The diagram shows no planes on the Cats. It looks like McCain was not up for launch for possibly six more launches and planes 310, 306, and 316 would launch first as they are spotted approaching the two aft Cats.
The information with the picture list plane positions of planes that were hit. How would they know? Because of before explosion footage and the Air Boss and the ABH's spotting charts. The picture I linked matches the diagram in the other one I linked previously.
The Forrestal's flightdeck is different than newer carriers. It was the first specifically designed for simultaneous jet fighter launch and recovery. The port side elevator was forward of the aft catapults instead of aft of them. Forrestal also had a different steam plant as it was the last 600 PSI boiler system rather than the newer 1200 PSI system. The island as well was further forward than others. It was the first angled flightdeck built as such. CV-59 FORRESTAL class
Hostage, cva66snipe is right on the money here with this. In this particular case.
I was trained in high power engine testing, so I understand the concept of wet starts and hot starts, how they happen and how you prevent them. Even though I worked with A-7 Corsairs, the concepts are no different than they are in a A-4 Skyhawk.
Ironically, I served in VA-46, the same squadron McCain was in when the accident happened, and McCain was actually my commanding officer for a few months in a training squadron before I went to that squadron. So I have had some closer familiarity to the events than many people...we heard jokingly for years about how our squadron was responsible for the fire on the Forrestal.
McCain had nothing to do with this. He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was fortunate to have survived. When you mentioned a possible wet start/hot start as a reason for the fire, it is impossible. At the time of the accident, McCain had not even started the engine. He had just closed the cockpit and they were preparing to start when the rocket fired by the F-4 Phantom on the other side of the flight deck passed completely through his plane without exploding and splashed into the sea behind him.
It tore open his fuel tanks, and the JP5 gushed out of the holes onto the flight deck, where it set everything around it on fire when it caught.
It was likely ignited by the rocket exhaust as it passed through.
I Photoshopped this image of how the planes were spotted when the fire began, and the F-4 Phantom manned by LCDR Bangert likely fired the rocket due to a stray electrical current that followed the path of least resistance down to the Zuni pod. It went across the flight deck, hit LCDR White's A-4 Skyhawk (side number 405 in the image below) was slightly deflected and passed directly through LCDR McCain's A-4 Skyhawk, and the rest is history. They don't know for certain if it hit White's plane, but it certainly did hit McCain's.
The point cva66snipe makes it valid: there are plenty of reasons to dislike and discredit McCain, and we should stick to those. We have enough information to know what a tool he is on the merits of what he has done, we don't need to make anything up.
The problem with putting forth opinions like this is that it marginalizes people like us who legitimately oppose John McCain and what he stands for. It is not hard for liberals to discredit us when some of us put forth this kind of thing as fact.
