Saturday Matinee: US Naval Aviation – the First 100 Years
From the good folks at the Naval Institute:
From the good folks at the Naval Institute:
Every so often, we as seagoers are reminded that the mundane may rapidly transform into the perilous, even without a human enemy. Such moments can bring out the best and worst in our nature. Twenty-one years ago today routine operations onboard the USS Bonefish (SS-582) and USS Carr (FFG 52) uderwent such a change. A…
Sixty-six years ago today… Want to know more? Go here.
A common thread about life at sea and flying from/working on an aircraft carrier is ‘hurry-up-and-wait;’ mostly because your time, your life is run by others. Whether it is Marshall trying to get everyone checked in for the last night recovery (only to wait until the ship finally turned into the wind) or stopping by…
While Midway was not the combat debut of the B-26 Marauder (that was left to B-26’s of the 22nd Bombardment Group launching attacks against Rabaul two months earlier), Midway was nonetheless the most auspicious of the Marauder’s early actions. Originating from a 1939 Army Air Corps specification for a twin-engined medium bomber (Circular Proposal 39-640),…
As a squadron of U.S. Navy dive bombers, flying at 12,000 feet, closed in on a Japanese target the sky ahead would fill up with bursting anti-aircraft shells as the Japanese defenders ranged in their guns. A high speed run in to 10,000 feet placed the squadron almost two miles high over the target in…
Nope — not the JFK, rather the INS Viraat. The Viraat is fast approaching her 50th anniversary (put in commission in 1959 as the HMS Hermes) and recently completed a SLEP (still, recalling life onboard a 40+ yr old conventional CV, even after SLEP it left something to be desired…). While never having had the…