Flightdeck Friday — The History of AEW (cont’d)

Project Cadillac (Part III) 1050L 24 Oct 1944. USS St. Lo (CVE-63) is under heavy air attack. After successfully fending off the superior surface force of VADM Takeo Kurita’s Center Force, “Taffy 3” is now defending against a surprise air attack that has lasted some 40 minutes already. One of the features of this attack…

10th Nimitz-class Christened

(Washington Post 8 Oct 06) NEWPORT NEWS, Oct. 7 — Despite a steady downpour that chilled thousands gathered Saturday in the shipyard here, President Bush and his father, George H.W. Bush, basked in the warm embrace of extended family and friends as they celebrated the christening of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier named after the former…

Flightdeck Friday — The History of AEW (cont’d)

Project Cadillac (Part II) Project Cadillac was more than just a program to develop radar – it would develop an entire AEW system. Radar, IFF, relay equipment, shipboard receivers, and airborne platform. Such an undertaking would be ambitious enough in peacetime, at the height of a critical stage in the war it bordered on a…

Things That Make You Go ‘Hmmmm…’: US Flag Vessel Forced to Take Evasive Action

(Didn’t see this one get much play in the open press…)US Flag Vessel Forced to Take Evasive Action to Avoid Ramming Tactical Defense Concepts (TDC), a maritime security training and consulting firm, recently received word of a possible terrorist act from a licensed mariner assigned to a US Flag vessel carrying US military cargo. The…

Badgers, Buccaneers and Bears…(Pt 4)

(Note: I am in the process of moving the postings off the old site to this one, beginning with this series) “Alpha Whiskey, Alpha Romeo, Tango One. Tango One recommends launching all available alert. Multiple bogeys inbound. Break, track 1231 now non-squawker, negative Mode 4, investigating with 9B. Setting station 9B with 11B” “Alpha Whiskey,…