LIVE THREAD: Bush Flies to USS Abraham Lincoln for Historic Speech

http://www.freerepublic.com ^ | May 1, 2003

[Taxman]

This is a great thread, and your observation is a cogent one: " I am gratified to see people here who elevate substance above emotion, fact above imagination, and gratitiude above selfishness."

Every time I think of OwlBore in the CICs chair in the oval office, I shudder. And I still shudder when I remember that der Sleazemeister sat there for 8 years. We are damn lucky to have survived his Presidency!

[quark]

Actually, just a Mk 1/Mod 0 squadron stick, but field DQ'd on my first try in Tomcats. Led to lots of time with the LSOs on the platform at the field & aboard ship observing passes & keeping the logbook. Helped a lot with my 2nd [successful] try. Was Kitty Hawk, Ranger, & Enterprise bubba, late-70s thru 80s.

[Taxman]

Yo, Bro! No such thing as a "Mk 1/Mod 0 squadron stick" in Tomcats! Takes summos cojones to fly them, shipmate, as you well know, and not become a smoking hole in the ground.

Glad you stuck with the program -- lots of guys quit if at first they don't succeed. I'll wager you are glad you stuck with the program, too.

I went in to fly Spads. I was a little behind the curve, as when I was in VT-3, having turned down Meridian for some "loud radial engine/right rudder flying," the Navy, in its infinite wisdom, sold all their Spads to the Air Force (who, BTW, bought every Spad the FRench had, as well), and shut down VT-30 in Corpus.

[Tne VNAF wound up with most of them, and they are, to this day, probably still mouldering away on the ramps at the former USAF/VNAF airfields scattered around South Vietnam.]

Well, hellzbellz, there was no way I was gonna quit the program (a lotta guys did), so I stuck with it, saw an E-2 one day, and said to myself, "Well, if you gotta go M/E tailhook (AND I WAS GOING TO BE A TAILHOOKER, NO DOUBT ABOUT IT!), might as well fly around the Tonkin Gulf in a modern pressurized and air conditioned airplane," the other choices being the S-2F or the E-1B.

So, I got orders to VAW-11 to fly E-2A's. And, naturally, while I was '65 GTOing out to NAS North Island, some poobah in the squadron (they were the E1-B/E2-A RAG and parent squadron then -- 350 or so officers and nearly 5,000 enlisted men, as I recall, with detachments on every West Coast Carrier) decided that I was the to be the "must pump" warm body they needed for the USS Kearsarge (CVS-33) "Willy Fudd" detachment. So I "saw the China Sea in my E-1B" for two cruises.

But then I went to the RVAW-110, the Fudd/Super Fudd RAG (the squadron had split by then), as the LSO, got cross qualled in the E-2A/B, and had a ball; like I needed an air conditioned airplane in San Diego!

While I was in RVW-110, I qualified as a "Fleet LSO" all varieties of carrier based Fighter/Attack aircraft, through the good graces of the AIRPAC LSOs. So when I reported aboard Kitty Hawk, the CAG LSO "impressed" me into his rotation -- we deployed to WESTPAC with three fully qualified LSOs, and I was one of them. Rather unusual, and it made for long, interesting days/nights!

I "got" to wave the Viggies (the RA-5C is, IMHO, the most beautiful airplane ever manufactured), the Hummers and the Whales, and teach the newbies about those badboys; the fighter/attack guys thought they were too big to be landing on a carrier, so, since I flew the Hummer, I was the "big aircraft" LSO! My first "solo HMFIC LSO" night recovery is memorable, to this day!

I tried to wrangle PCS to the AirWing so I could fly more, but was unable to do that, and by the end of the first Kitty Hawk cruise, I was pretty much out of the LSO business, as they had qualled enough newbies to man the platform "comfortably."

Later, I flew the Super Fudd in the Reserves at NAS Miramar, circa 1976-1981 in VAW-1285.

I'm proud to have been a Tailhooker, but I sure would have loved flying the Spad!

[quark]

Hey, the days of iron men & wooden ships! Went through VT-6 when they had the last T-28s, plus the new T-34Cs. Wimped out & took the Mentor over the Trojan. Regret that decision now. Would love to fly something big & radial with my right leg aching from all that rudder time.

[Taxman]

Naahhh! When given the choice between a turbine powered, air conditioned fast mover vs a big, hot, noisy sumbitch fast mover, the turbine/air conditioned fast mover wins ever time!

Seriously, I never will forget the leg cramps I got holding the T-28 back on my first runup mag check! Nor will I forget my first solo in the T-28 and joining the 300 knot club!

OTOH, the closest I ever got to the Mach was about .95 in a slick TA-4 in a near vertical dive. That particular flight was eventful in a number of ways -- it was my first "Jets are for kids" flight, the A/C (the AIRPAC LSO) was a hot rodder, I filled about 3 barf bags (only on the 1st leg -- nothing left for the return trip), and when we got to San Francisco, I had to do the CarQual brief!

As I recall, we were upright and wings level only during the takeoff and landing rolls, FRom Miramar to Alameda and back! I recall the CAG asking me why I had such a peculiar skin color and drank so much water!

But I loved every minute of that flight, and later got the complete A-4 LSO transition course at NAS LeMoore. Picked up about 70 hours of A-4 time, and really had a ball. Asked, but was turned down, for an A-7 transition and a CAG LSO job in the Midway. "Breaks of Naval Air?"

Do you still fly? I gave flying up for other endeavors in 1981. I miss it, to this day.

[DoctorMichael]

Three people have to be added after watching these idiots on the news tonight.......

EAT THIS, Senator Byrd, you doddering, geriatric-KKK, senile, pork-barrel-peddling old bastard.

[DoctorMichael]

Three people have to be added after their calls for an investigation.......

EAT THIS, Henry Waxman, you no-good, hateful, spiteful, partisan  Member of the Democratic Socialists of America-SOB.

[DoctorMichael]

Three people have to be added after their calls for an investigation.......

EAT THIS, John Conyers, you predjudiced, bigoted, Marxist-Stalinist-toilet-bowel-
sniffing-McCarthyite, afraid-to-admit-he's-a-Member of the Democratic
Socialists of America-Bastard.