It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas…
August 1977. Nellis Range – Nevada. The flight lead of a section of F-4E’s is searching in vain for the intruders. Flying CAP, their mission is to intercept ingressing strike aircraft as part of the large scale exercise known as ‘Red Flag.’ Normally an exceptionally challenging environment, meant to replicate the skies over Central Europe,…
One week, several decades and many milestones – some significant, some quite obscure. A look at the week of July 13-19 and Naval Aviation across the decades: 14 July 1940 — The initial meeting of what became the National Defense Research Committee’s Division 14, or Radar Division, was attended by Alfred L. Loomis, Ralph Bowen,…
Mail — we get mail on a variety of topics and subjects. Flightdeck Fridays though seem to engender the most responses and sometimes we receive some additional information – photos, remembrances, anecdotes and the like; to further flesh-out a particular story. So – this week we had the following passed our way: Item 1: U-2…
Last week we went big – big planes, big ships, big nukes, big hair (no wait, that’s another story…). This week we go to the other end of the spectrum. < ?xml:namespace prefix = o /> Arms Race – 1950 1950 and the nuclear arms race is well and truly underway. The Soviets had surprised…
Project CADILLAC (Part I) Ed note: Everything has a beginning and that beginning is usually quite humble compared to present conditions. Consider, a small spring at the headwaters of the Madison River in Montana is the source of the mighty Missouri River which itself empties into ol’ man river — the Mississippi, all of which…
“Hawkeye, Ball…” Since the E-2A went to sea in the early 1960’s, “Hawkeye” was the name used for the ball call to the LSOs. Later iterations of the E-2C continued that practice but distinguished the a/c type by markings on the nose (a white “II” for Group 2 E-2s, or a “+” for H2Ks today)….
