JarheadBoom

Brings back a funny/sad memory of a Marine helicopter crash on Okinawa some years back (as related to me by the crewchief on the flight): CH-46E doing an autorotation for post-maintenance check flight. At the bottom of the auto, passing when the flare should be initiated, the pilots look at each other. HAC: You gonna pull? H2P: Your controls. HAC: I thought you had it?! Both: OH SH*T! *BOOM*CRUNCH*SCREECH*BANG* Luckily, all 3 crewmembers walked away, and IIRC the helo was eventually pieced back together at the depot. A couple years later, the same HAC flew another -46 into the side of the boat while practicing a simulated single-engine approach... with one engine pulled back to idle (violating NATOPS procedures). Luckily again, everyone lived, and that flight turned out to be the HAC's last as a military pilot. Back on topic: Glad the pilots are OK. And I think I see a parts donor for the Tone fleet in those pics...

That's how it was, for the most part, in the Corps (and by extension, the Navy). Jeez, you sure you're not at McGuire? On my last flight we had nav problems during taxi-out, and MX (via the CP) was trying their damndest to pin the late T/O on the crew. That lasted until com/nav showed up at the jet and saw the indications & warnings we were getting... and even then the pro super was commenting on how pissed the MXG/CC would be about how the late T/O "would be seen as MX's fault".

Thanks for the compliment, Hacker... but I have no engineering degree. Or any degree, for that matter. I'm just an aviation fanatic with an A&P license and 15+ years of mil. and civ. aircraft maintenance and ops experience.

Base pay only for the number of days you sell back; taxed heavily. I just sold back 37 days when I got off my long-term AD orders at the end of April - I haven't seen a dime yet, and don't expect to until sometime next month.

The aircraft mechanic in me is dumbfounded to think that the pitot-static-port covers on a $1+B fly-by-wire national asset weren't installed for the rain... unless of course the heavy rain started during engine start or taxi (I don't know what the WX was at the time of the mishap). Must've been a really nasty downpour to overwhelm the capability of the pitot-static system drains to accumulate the water and keep it out of the system. hindsight2020, I initially thought you were nuts for suggesting a pitot tube and AOA vane on a LO airframe... but then after thinking about it a bit more, it could be done with an installation like an ADG (Air-Driven Generator) or RAT (Ram Air Turbine), where a lever in the cockpit drops a small platform out of the fuselage and into the airflow with the tube & vane on it. When the computers detect the deployment of the "emergency airspeed & AOA", they could switch over to the inputs from the tube & vane.

I sure hope that's sarcasm... *** EDIT *** After re-reading the above quote several hours later, I don't know what the hell I was thinking with the sarcasm comment. Disregard.

"stract" is a helo guy. No ejection seats in a -60 (no matter what the airshow experts try to tell you... ). I've heard the "rule" about crewmembers and spouses not flying on the same aircraft, but like I said, we flew in the same aircraft, with WG/CC and OG/CC blessing. Both were present during the spouses brief, and both remarked about how lucky they were to be able to do it. If someone really wants to know the regs used to support our flight, I'll ask the pilot who set it up the next time I see him (which might be a while). Keep in mind we're AFRC. Might be a difference, might not be...

There's gotta be a legal way - my SQ did a Spouse Flight last summer, and my wife got to fly with me, along with 3 other guys and their wives. The event was blessed by both the WG/CC and OG/CC (who is notorious for saying "No" to things). HUGE spousal-harmony booster if your spouse likes airplanes.

Unless boofer left USMC Hueys early, I think his question still stands: Does 24+ consecutive months in the USMC UH-1N satisfy the AF requirements for an additional award of the Combat Readiness Medal?

Left for 5 weeks, eh? If that dude was on anything less than a 365-day tour, whoever signed off on that should be kicked in the nuts. Repeatedly. I do have one question (and it's rhetorical, of course...): When the f*ck are military leaders DoD-wide going to realize that having ONLY ONE F*CKING PERSON able to perform a particular task is a REALLY BAD F*CKING IDEA?!? Good God, if I had a dollar for every time I've been told in my 13 years of uniformed service that "the only person who can __________ isn't here. You'll have to come back __________" or some other variation on that theme...

"2" Been through it four times, in the other branch. Hope it never happens again... it's a bad, bad feeling.

WRI has recently picked up a few of these channels as well. "2" on the chances-of-a-seat issue...

Dunno what 0E or 8G are, but it's gotta be a bad thing if there's wearing-of-blues involved...

Quoted the way it was probably intended: When I was in the other service and we were starting the transition to the new MARPAT (digital) cammies, the old-Corps dudes were saying the same crap: "How are we gonna make good Marines when recruits in boot-camp don't have to polish their boots anymore?? Dear God, the Corps is gonna go to sh*t because of these new uniforms!!" I seem to recall having about 3 minutes most nights in boot camp to polish boots AND brass - needless to say, neither were especially shiny. And it didn't matter anyway - we had a DI who seemed to get off on stepping on everyone's toes before we ever left the squadbay in the morning, so we would look as f*cked-up as he proclaimed we were. Ahhh, memories...

Interesting... there's a lot more left of the airframe than I thought there'd be.

Not surprising, given the 4+ month grounding of the -15A thru D fleet a little while back...

Gotcha. No biggie... Absolutely... even though I'm not a pilot.

The Grumman Ironworks and General Motors built them. The Navy flew and maintained them. Look up the records for other training bases, both USN and USAAC, during the WWII days. Mishap rates were likely similar. Related point (kinda): In the '50s, during the early days of jet-powered carrier aviation, the Navy lost the equivalent of ONE AIRPLANE PER DAY for a couple years before they came up with the NATOPS program. Look up those mishap rates for grins...

The following is from part of the MSNBC series I linked to. I feel it's worth it's own post, after that bullshit that TMZ posted about the continued search for MIA's... The cabin wreckage was so twisted and tangled, sharp edges jutting everywhere like knife points, that the divers demanded the wreckage itself be hauled to the surface and the operation continued on deck. The crew, the NASA teams and the astronauts overseeing the operation stood silently on the USS Preserver recovery ship as a crane lifted the wreckage from the sea. Every step possible to render respect and honor to the human remains was taken. The salvage operations proceeded normally until the steel cables on the ocean bottom tugged at another section of Challenger’s middeck. At first the weight and mass seemed too great for the hoisting system. Slowly, painfully, the cables pulled the unseen wreckage from the bottom. Then the cables drew the load to the surface. Divers in the water, and everyone on deck, froze where they were. A blue astronaut jumpsuit bobbed to the surface, turned slowly and then disappeared again within the sea. What seemed liked minutes passed, in reality only seconds of time. Divers and sailors stood stunned as they realized what had happened. They had found — and just as quickly lost — astronaut Gregory Jarvis. Immediately the divers went deep again, beginning a frantic search for the last astronaut of Challenger, a frustrating search that would not end for another five weeks. Reuniting the heroes In the days following, armed forces pathologists made positive identifications of six astronauts from Challenger. The underwater search continued for the body of Gregory Jarvis. The frustrations of failure day after day began to tell on everyone involved. No one wanted to declare “missing” someone so close to his own group, when they knew the body had every chance of being nearby. Veteran shuttle pilots Robert Crippen and Bob Overmyer had been put in charge of the recovery of their fellow astronauts, and they would brook no interference from anyone, no matter how high they might be in the NASA hierarchy. Or from any other source. Crippen and Overmyer had decided that when the remains were turned over to the families, there would be seven coffins beneath the American flags. There would not be six. So desperate was Crippen to bring Jarvis home with the rest of his crew that he used his own credit card to hire a local scallop boat to drag its nets across the ocean bottom. Crippen’s move was a last-ditch effort in a search all but abandoned by the exhausted recovery forces. On April 15, when the recovery teams were planning to cease the search they had carried out for months, divers were making what was scheduled to be their last attempts to gather wreckage from the ocean floor. Two hundred yards from where they had lost the blue suit, they swam within view of the lost astronaut. The seventh crew member of Challenger was brought carefully to the surface. Ashore, finally, the Challenger Seven were reunited.

From first launch to this day, Shuttle crews wear full pressure suits until established in orbit. Cabin depress isn't a factor. I recall that coming out of the investigation as well. ****** EDIT ****** My curiosity was piqued after posting this and thinking about it some more, so I did a little more Google-ing. Too much info to post, so here's some links. Be advised - all but one are not official: Challenger crew survival? Snopes on Challenger crew "transcripts" MSNBC article (part of a series) Related - Columbia crew survival Arlington National Cemetary memorial page - part of the official report located about halfway down the page NASA's Challenger page more editing... usaf36031 - right you are about the pressure suits. Apparently Challenger's crew was wearing standard NASA blue flightsuits (NOT pressurized), with a sealed helmet that delivered oxygen in case of cabin depress.

I'm talking about images on screens that should be viewed in private, not the electronic evidence of who-went-where. You know damn well some new Airman (or Lt, to be fair) is gonna be checking out some online skin, in a location where someone can walk by and easily see what he's looking at, and the "I'm Offended!" alarm will get sounded at the MEO's office. The "offended party" will likely be of higher rank than the "offending party", but will lack the basic leadership skills to correct the situation on-the-spot, and will therefore get the entire f*cking chain of command involved since they don't know how to do anything else. Say buh-bye, wireless interwebs... Mark my words, folks.

Still remember that day; watched the launch at school in a big assembly. Teachers were so upset throughout the entire school district, that they ended up sending us home early. I still cringe thinking about what that 2+ minute freefall must have been like for the crewmembers who survived the explosion.

My guess is if it starts commercial, it'll end up Comm Nazi'd, and quicker than you'd think. All it's gonna take is one female who is padlocked to the I'm Offended! position, to see something Airman Doumass shoulda been smart enough to conceal, and it'll be all over but the cryin'...

Neat; learn something new every day.

When I was in the Corps, we got the very-first female Marine Corps pilot in our squadron in '95. Talk about a three-ring circus... PA, journalists from every-friggin-where, generals & admirals of both sexes, all falling all over themselves to "get her story" or "get her picture" or "fly with the first female USMC pilot". Right about the time things at home station were getting back to ops-normal (a year later...), we deployed to Okinawa, and the circus began all over again. We've got enough females in my current SQ to make an all-female KC-10 crew. I'm kinda surprised (and glad) WRI's PA hasn't picked up on that. But, then again, it is WRI I'm talking about... ** EDIT ** Just checked out the fighter chicks website (didn't even know such a thing existed), and I have to ask: WTF is this??? I thought "party suits" were a Navy thing... http://www.fighterchicks.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=616