VT-10 Celebrates Fifty Years of Wildcats (June 23-25)

A Quick History Before there were NFOs there were Naval Aviation Observers.  In June 1960, the Basic Naval Aviation Officer School was established to train the future radar intercept officers, bombardier/navigators and air intercept control officers that were joining the fleet in ever increasing numbers.  This was spurred in no small degree by the revolution…

Out of the Box Thinking and Execution 68 Years Ago: The Doolittle Raid

Sixty-five years ago. . . . . . Guts, determination, innovation & courage were defined (and well before Joint was “cool”) (Courtesy Mary R. over at USNI’s blog — General Doolittle describes the Tokyo raid) Conceived in the dark aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the raid had its genesis in the idea of…

Flightdeck Friday: A Family Remembers a Father, Naval Officer and Former Vigilante B/N

A few days back I received a very nice note regarding an earlier Flightdeck Friday whose subject, the A5A Vigilante, is a favorite of mine.   Now, having been frustrated upon checking into VT-10 (ahem, many years ago) to learn that I’d missed the last class allowed to go Vigi’s, any story about Vigi’s will make…

On This Date in Naval Aviation History: Aviation Greens Make A Comeback

Ah, Aviation Working Greens – my absolute favorite day-to-day uniform to wear during Norfolk winters and guaranteed way to get a non-aviator’s head to explode in the pre-Lehman years. Lots of mythology and conjecture as to how we came to acquire (a) the green uniform and (b) the accompanying brown shoes, so maybe this will…