(1988)
plus c’est la même chose
(2008) (photo of VAW-126 by way of Southern Air Pirate)
…for the uninitiated – those would be the back-ends of the E-2C, then and now.
Oh, and Lex — per your query:
subfamily: Talpinae;
tribe: talpini;
genus: talpa; Talpa caeca;
sub-genus: hummerus
Task Force 17 – Rear Admiral Frank J. Fletcher in Yorktown Task Group 17.5 Carrier Group – CAPT Elliott Buckmaster USS Yorktown (CV-5)CAPT Buckmaster CVG-5 – LCDR Oscar Pederson VS-5LT Wallace Clark Short, Jr.19 (17) x SBD-3 VF-3LCDR John Smith Thach27 (25) x F4F-4 VB-3LCDR Maxwell Franklin Leslie 18 (17) x SBD-3 VT-3LCDR Lance Edward…
The average age of aircraft in the Russian Air Force is about 25 years, so the defense ministry is working up an ambitious plan to replace a major portion while eliminating some inventory by retirement, all by 2020. Fifteen hundred aircraft of which 350 are to be new production combat aircraft over the next ten…
By any measure, fifty years is remarkable. Birthdays, reunions, wedding anniversaries – in all of these the marker set at fifty years is justifiably prominent and noteworthy. For aircraft — especially those in carrier aviation, it is signatory. This month the E-2 Hawkeye will celebrate 50 years, starting with the first flight of the prototype,…
As we wrestle with an ISP that seems to have a different sense of urgency than YHS when it comes to transferring service upon shifting our flag, access to the ‘verse will continue to be, well, spotty, over the next few days. What little we are able to accomplish is via the services of our…
(Picture from globalaircraft.org) Reports at the Paris Airshow this week that something was afoot between Russia and Syria over sales of MiG-31’s (and thereby updating Syria’s aging fleet of MiG-25’s) has generated a certain amount of heat over allegations that Iran is secretly funding the deal. More below the fold:
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…
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So, how do they get their eyes ready for daylight at the end of the hop? Shine flashlights in each other’s faces? 🙂
Nope — flashlights are reserved for, uh, training aids (which, BTW, explains Skippy’s condiiton…). We actually get to drop the flaps and peer out of the miniscule portholes the thoughtful folks at the ironworks provided so we can grasp a glimpse of sea/sky right before we trap – just to make sure they are in the right position. Remind me to relate the story sometime about the USAF AWCS exchange guy who claimed he could tell our height by the size of the bubbles in the wake…damn near caused a riot in the RR one time. 😯
-SJS
How did you ever do it… with light pens? It seems so… primitive. I did get a kick looking over Lex’s post… seems he has quite the following of Hummer guys.
So you were playing pong and 08 guys are playing XBox 360?
Dutch — light pens are a crutch — as are track balls… Real moles can eyeball it all… actually, because of a batch of bad light pens I did all my initial AIC quals using a grease pencil and raw video.
– SJS
I flew with some really hard flashlight thumpers………………Thank God for the helmet!
Re Light Pens-I hate track balls- even now. A good guy with a light pen can work circles around someone doing the same thing with a track ball. Besides-Radar is a crutch anyway. Real E-2 NFO’s know where the bogies are in their Karma. Adn for the ABCCC mission all that is needed is a copy of the ATO, a map, and good strong pad of paper and a grease pen.