Real world exigencies being what they are, we had pondered passing on this week’s edition, except… …except that there are some great write-ups out there for the reading, such as: Southern Air Pirate’s write-up on the history of Navy’s EW effort (Part 1 and Part 2) Meanwhile, over at Tailhook’s blog, a very excellent post…
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,…
5,156 victories (4797 by carrier-based F6F’s) vs 270 lost in air-to-air combat (19.1:1 kill ratio) 305 Aces 55 per cent of all aircraft destroyed by Navy/Marine aviators for all of WW2 When WW2 began, the US fighter force (land- and sea-based) was woefully inadequate. Slow in speed and maneuvering, out powered in the climb, often…
Some art and photos from the archives, bound together with a classic score – for your weekend’s pleasure. – SJS — —
So – wrapping up our TDY this week and hopping the (ugh) red-eye back to Occupied Territory for to make it back for a libs this weekend before back to the grind Monday. While we’ve been concentrating on Midway this past week, there is this other event over in the ETO that took place in…
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-5 LT Wallace Clark Short, Jr. 19 (17) x SBD-3 VF-3 LCDR John Smith Thach 27 (25) x F4F-4 VB-3 LCDR Maxwell Franklin Leslie 18…
Something a little different for Flightdeck Friday this Memorial day weekend. We are working on a project that if luck holds out, we should be able to post over the weekend, provided we don’t have to make an unbidden trip that lurks around the corner…if so, we’ll roll that project to the 4th of July….
Unless you’ve been blogging under a rock of late, most around these parts know that Lex (aka Neptunus Lex) is headed ashore permanently this week as he retires from active duty. Given the geographic disparity in our locations we, unfortunately, shall not be there in person to wish him the best as he begins his…
The jet age doesn’t hold a monopoly on goofs, blunders and outright failures where naval aviation is concerned. Indeed, the prop epoch not only had its fair share, but perhaps the posterchild for the genre, the F2A Brewster. Meant to be the Navy’s first foray into the carrier-based monoplane field it was instead shunted ashore,…
Off today to Norfolk to speak at the winging of the next class of replacement NFO’s at the E-2 FRS (VAW-120) – more on that later. -SJS 1 MAY 1951 Today’s subject – the torpedo attack on the floodgates of the Hwachon Dam, is an example of what today is described as thinking out of…
