Posted on 05/03/2019 8:44:56 AM PDT by C19fan
A badass plane should have a badass name. The Tomcat did.
I was an A-6 Ordie on the Nimitz an went on the Med cruise after the shoot down. It was great seeing the jet involved. You are correct about the things we were able to get away with then. I’m sure its quite different now.
We deployed with a helo squadron, USMC Queer, E-2, S-3, A-7, A-6, and F-14. Oh, and a Whale
I crossed the line of death, but all I got was a lousy T-shirt.
My father was an engineer and worked on building them at the Grumman plant on Stewart Ave. in Garden City, NY. I remember in the late 60's he was relocated from the Bethpage plant to the Garden City plant and he took us there for family day and there were all these F-14's on an assembly line just like Chevy station wagons. Very cool.
Fast forward to 1976. An F-14 broke loose and rolled of the USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-67) in extremely heavy sea state during the Teamwork 76 NATO exercises. The Navy was so worried that the Soviets might try to raise the wreck to get a look at the Phoenix missiles (à la K-129) that my sub, the USS Greenling (SSN-614) was detailed to keep watch over it until NR-1 was brought over from New London to do whatever they did to prevent any exploitation of the wreck.
I have seen that movie a couple of times on afternoon weekends. 90 minute infomercial for the Navy. :0
Goes to show you, the Air Forces needs and the Navy’s needs don’t overlap when it comes to the airframe. Design one airframe for the Air Force and one for the Navy and everyone is happy.
They keep trying to work off a single platform and for something like a plane where weight is king it doesn’t work.
It might work for motors, and avionics, but not the airframe.
Frikn’ REMFS.
If it was the said incident that I remember, they eventually got a line on that stray Tomcat and hoisted it to the surface. I think it still had ordnance on the racks.
I was on Nimitz during the deployment in 87 when we had the last launch of a Whale. During final recovery attempt the nose gear hit the top of the barricade and we lost the plane and all 7 aircrew.
That was a real weird plane. Very fast but not designed for guns. They found out fast that was a mistake.
As I understand the canted tail fins were to correct a stability issue. They had to cant the wingtips too to correct another stability issue. They got it working though.
I hear those Bears were outrageously noisy.
I remember once working on the big planes with bathrooms. Once I had to crap real bad, so I ran into a plane to drop a duce. Well it was really dark, and I didn’t hear anything for a second. Well, as it turn out the toilet was gone, and I was crapping on the lower hull of the plane.
Yeah, the sled was a bit odd … point is, a USAF, USN, and USMC Phantoms were essentially the same plane. IIRC, USAF kept the tailhook, because removing it would screw up weight/balance. It worked well for all of them. A bit of an exception to the general rule, though.
The landing gear requirements are entirely different. Not mention the stronger air frame to withstand the controlled crash called a carrier landing. The USAF doesn’t need it.
Buck naked like...
The USAF had to buy the Phantom (and the A7) because they had nothing in the pipe for ground support when Vietnam heated up.
The lack of a gun on the Phantom was more stupid REMF whiz kid BS. The sort of thing that that @$#&#! MacNamara excelled at.
Most of the Migs are still here at Stead Airport. I just went out on the deck and checked. One was cycling doing t&gos last weekend.
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