Free Republic

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – A Navy T-34 jet trainer with two people aboard has gone missing off the Texas gulf coast. U.S. Coast Guard officials said an air traffic controller at Corpus Christi's naval air station lost contact with the crew about 3:20 p.m. Wednesday. The single-engine T-34 was last reported near Port Lavaca. The Coast Guard has dispatched a helicopter, jet and boats to search for the jet. Port Lavaca is about 75 miles northeast of Corpus Christi.

Blue Angels will perform for air show crowd The South Texas Shootout Air Show, featuring the U.S. Navys Blue Angels, will soar above Naval Air Station Corpus Christi on Saturday and Sunday. The gates open at 9 a.m. and the air show will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day. About 180,000 people attended the air show two years ago, said Bob Torres, NAS-Corpus Christi spokesman. The air shows site in the Coastal Bend rotates with NAS-Kingsville every other year. With the economy the way it is, its a great way to spend the weekend with the entire...

Emotions ran high as members of a small anti-war group were met with opposition, mistaken for the Kansas based radical group known as Westboro Baptist Church. Members of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church, had planned to picket outside NAS Corpus Christi this morning. The group claims they wanted to thank God, for the January 16th helicopter crash that claimed the lives of 3 US sailors based here. The group never showed up, but hundreds of people anticipating their arrival did. An estimated crowd of more than one thousand people including riders with the Patriot Guard took to the streets with...

Nueces County Republican ClubMessage from the President of the Republican Club Thursday, January 31, 2008 Counterprotest at NAS Corpus Christi If you haven't heard of it, the infamous Westboro Baptist Cult (I refuse to call them a Church!!), famous for protesting American servicemen who are killed in combat is planning to make an appearance in Corpus Christi this Saturday at 10:00AM outside NAS Corpus Christi's main gate. I am as freedom oriented as the next guy, but I've just about had it with these guys. The so-called church is really just a single family of miscreants that think that God...

Homophobic Church Group to Picket Navy Air Station Members of a radical Kansas church who say God punished three Navy officers killed in the recent helicopter crash are planning to picket outside Naval Air Station-Corpus Christi. Members of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church believe God punished the officers because of the sins of the nation. Picketing is set to start at noon Saturday at the main gate at SPID and NAS Drive in Flour Bluff. Church members are expected to carry signs that read "God Hates the Nation," and to thank God for the Jan. 16 helicopter crash that claimed...

Tribute to Fallen Men CORPUS CHRISTI — Hundreds of sailors and members of the Naval Air Station Corpus Christi community gathered on base Friday to honor three helicopter crewmen killed in a Jan. 16 crash near Petronila. Petty Officer 2nd Class Alexander "Kip" LeMarr, 25, of Parker, Colo.; Lt. Joshua Gross, 30, of Johnson City, N.Y.; and 22-year-old Petty Officer 2nd Class David Davison, of Guthrie, Okla., died when their MH-53E Sea Dragon anti-mine helicopter was reported down about 8:15 p.m. The crew was assigned to the HM-15 Blackhawk squadron at NAS Corpus Christi. "It is the greatest of honors...

Local Navy student pilots will learn the craft's digital cockpit Student pilots at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi will begin training for more advanced aircraft when the T-6 Texan II replaces the T-34 Turbomentor. The change will occur in 2012. The single-engine, two-seat T-6 that will replace the single-engine, two-seat T-34 will have a digital cockpit instead of a dial-instrumentation cockpit. The change allows the students to learn a digital cockpit from the beginning, instead of learning a dial cockpit and then a digital cockpit in advanced training, said Lt. Sean Robertson, a spokesman for the Chief of Naval Air...

A Navy pilot and student died when their training plane crashed and burned Friday in Corpus Christi, a military spokesman said. Lt. Jr. Sean Robertson said their identities were being withheld until their family members were notified. The two were in a T-34C turbomentor, a low-wing turboprop that has been in use to train Navy pilots since 1977. They crashed during a routine training flight into a field about 3 miles south of Naval Air Station Corpus Christi. The cause of accident under investigation. Earlier this month, a two-seat Navy T34 training plane was forced to make an emergency belly...

Even if you have lived in a place a long time, as I have in Corpus Christi, there are always new things to discover and to experience. One of those new experiences for me recently was witnessing a "winging ceremony" at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi. The military has a very large presence in Corpus Christi, and it has had it for a very long time. You might say that the history of modern day Corpus Christi begins with the arrival of Gen. Zachary Taylor and the encampment of his troops here in 1845. The military economy, on which the...