Thank you for your service, sir.
I am an aviation enthusiast, always have been since I was a little kid watching the navy aircraft operating from Cubi Point in Subic, and I have long believed in the adage that if a plane looks good, it will perform good. I always thought the S-3 was a very beautiful and graceful looking craft, and it just looked like it knew how to fly. They always seemed to me to perform well as they came in and crossed the ramp.
You know what really put a smile on my face about the S-3? When they used to do the mini-air shows for the benefit of the ship’s crew...seeing an S-3 come in and perform a barrel roll for the first time. I don’t know why, I just didn’t expect it. I actually remember saying “Hey, I didn’t know they could do that!”
Funny...one of the things I loved, and I know everyone else did too, was the very last contributor to the little air show. Last plane in was a Hawkeye, engines wide open, diving at a pretty steep angle (for the Hawkeye) with faint black exhaust, so you could tell it was really cooking! As it bore in, you could almost imagine the radome quivering and shaking with the stress.
Everyone likes a nice supersonic pass at low altitude by a Tomcat or Crusader, but there was something endearing about that Hawkeye diving in. Like watching an elephant perform some feat of agility...:)
What do you think of using Osprey tilt-rotors as an ASW platform?