It began with a phone call – “It always begins with a damn phone call…†the young LT thought morosely to himself. Any other time he would be drinking in the warmth of the Florida sun, enjoying the beach, such as it was, across the highway from Patrick AFB, but not this time.
The mind is a funny thing sometimes. During a recent (long) layover at a major metropolitan airport your humble scribe was gazing out a window, as he is wont to do from time to time, and watched the ground crew prepping yet another jet for its journeys over the horizon. His attention was drawn to…
Naval Aviators (and by extension, Naval Flight Officers), of the tailhook variety that is, tend to be a peculiar lot. On the one hand we live to fly “at the boat†and yet, the prospect of actually doing anything besides actually aviating is well, anathema – for some. Early on the behavior was learned at…
Part I Part II Part III Standing up and stretching after what had seemed an eternity on this C-141 flight, the LTJG was finding aches and sore points that he had previous not known. As he stepped off the plane onto the bright tarmac, the colors of Norfolk in mid-spring bloom came crashing in upon…
Part I Part II And 015? Well, a small crew was already making steady progress at assessing her state that evening. When he left Saturday, he was surprised to see the MODEX already painted on her nose, squadron seal and Battle “E”, Safety “S” and AEW Excellence awards applied and the beginnings of the sunburst…
Solo travel has a way of providing time – time for reflection, time for review, time for introspection. Prolonged layovers in particular, provide that time (ed – and a lot of it, if this recent trip is to be judged). It was while cooling his heels in another (not so) antiseptic terminal somewhere along his…
In the mid-80’s, the VAW community in an attempt to address soaring OPTEMPO and a shortage of pilots tried the NFO Copilot program, wherein 2nd tour LTs and LCDRs were taken through a FRS NATOPS syllabus and qualified to fly right seat for day/VMC ops off the boat… “So Scribe, what was it like as…
(Part I) Somewhere the JG heard the MO mutter, somewhere under all that crap is a pony and we have to find it, won’t we Will he said looking directly at the QAO. Oh great he thought yeah, this is going to be one for the books if it doesn’t kill us in the process…
“The stars … I miss the stars…†So went my response to a recent query from someone who noticed a certain wistfulness about me whilst talking of the sea. “What do you miss most about it?†they asked. To be sure, I missed the flying, the sense of purposeful direction and immediate feedback entailed with…
SJS note: Aircraft, like cars, stoves, televisions and Tickle-Me-Elmo ®, are products of assembly lines some more massive than others, but the premise is still the same. Build a lot of something to set standards with common assemblies and a uniform product results. Except when it doesn’t. Every one of us who have slipped the…
