Happy Anniversary: 100 Years of Marine Corps Aviation

Weasel Zippers ^

[NFHale]

Happy Anniversary: 100 Years of Marine Corps Aviation…

[NFHale]

Great history video...

Happy Anniversary - 100 years of USMC winged whoop-*ss!!!

Enjoy!!

OOOrah!!!!

[rickyc]

From a proud Marine Aviator - Semper Fidelis!!

[Jacquerie]

Yep! Every one a Naval Aviator!

[Red_Devil 232]

Semper Fidelis!! From a Vietnam Vet - Marine Phantom Phixer F4-J - VMFA-232 - Red Devils.

[Red_Devil 232]

Here is one all dressed up and on display at the Smithsonian.

[NFHale]

Phantoms....Winged Whoop-*ass indeed....

One of my favorite birds of prey.

Always kinda partial to the old Vought F4U Corsair too...(WWII Pacific version). MEAN lookin’ bird - just nasty and beautiful.

[NEWwoman]

God bless the Marines!

Tweeted the link

[NFHale]

Sweet pic!!!

[Typelouder]

Air Force F-4s didn’t have a kickstand! Thanks for your service....Marines on my wife’s side of the family, a Navy dad and Air Force here and 2 brothers also.

[thackney]

From:

To:

[NFHale]

[sigh]....oh here we go!!! Hahahah!!

Excellent!

[NFHale]

Quite a leap in 100 short years, ain’t it?

In case anyone is in the Reading Pennsylvania area this weekend, there is a WWII Air show and re-enactment going on June 1,2,3.

http://www.maam.org/
22nd Annual
World War II Weekend
JUNE 1-2-3

They do this every year. Restored WWII aircraft (list at the link) armored vehicles, etc. An amazing collection, and re-enactors from around the world.

They have one of the few remaining flying B-17 Flying Fortresses there as well, and it goes up every year.

They even build a bombed out French village...with faux Frenchies sitting on the roof eating wine and cheese while the Amis and Le Boche duke it out in the streets below.

[60Gunner]

Semper Fi, sky high!

[doorgunner69]

Decint shot of one of our old, bedraggled birds. Appropriately,loaded with 750 ponders. No one liked handling those, too heavy to manhandle like 250 and 500 pound stuff into the hooks and swaybraces. Must not have been all that accurate, seems they usually used them for TPG and more higher altitude stuff, not close air support. Anyway, a forty plus year memory.

Last squadron I was with before going to helos.

[Red_Devil 232]

Great picture! Where and when was this picture taken? Da Nang or Chu Lai?

[doorgunner69]

I found it on the web, but if I had to take a guess, I'd say Da Nang. The revetments are too long unless he is out past the end by the taxiway. Then again, could be on the apron in between the last hangar and the 323 revetments, just dunno.

Truth be told, I only recall loading 750 pound stuff while with VMFA-122 in Da Nang. Could be just my 64 yr old memory, but it seemed Chu Lai specialized more in close air support. Maybe because the birds could quickly take off without waiting for airliners, Air Force, and whatever.

Lots of Hot Pad, Snake and Nape, 2.75" FFAR and Zunis. Hot and sweaty stuff during day, and working at night brought the rocket attacks.

[Red_Devil 232]

I don't think I ever saw a 750#er we were using 250 and 500#ers. This is an aerial photo I took of our flight line at Nam Phong, Thailand. Also known as the Rose Garden.

And a picture of my living quarters before the Seabees built our Mash Type quarters.

[doorgunner69]

I don't think I ever saw a 750#er we were using 250 and 500#ers.

Word was, we had sold them to the Brits, and then ended up buying them back when we stated going through so much ordnance 1967. Bought them back at a loss of course.

They were very fat, could not get a grip like you could on the smaller stuff with a slender nose.

On looking at that pic again, what I thought was an unbroken revetment does have a gap. Man, without revetments, you sure look exposed there in Nam Phong. We had to have them of course. I have some pics I took of the aftermath of 122mm hits and the burned up birds, but no damage outside of those two.

[Red_Devil 232]

I was night crew just about the whole time I was in the Marines. The time for the rocket attacks seemed to be around 2 to 3 am at Da Nang. That is just about the time I was always sitting in a cockpit doing the daily avionics checks on all the aircraft they were always already loaded with their bombs and I was doing the final checks to make sure all electronics were ready for the early morning sorties.

Our sand bagged bomb shelter just outside the hanger. I am on the right.

[yellowhorse]

I was at Chu Lai in ‘66 & ‘68 with VMFA 314, The Black Knights. I seem to remember VMFA 232 being there at thhhat time. There were no F4’ in Da Nang, only Chu Lai if my memory is correct.