My VS duty was with VS-31 on Ike - we re-made our squadron patch in 1981
to
reflect the fact that we had gone one entire year without submarine
contact.

Er, isn't that bad. Can you tell us more?

/seastory mode on/

Now, this is no ****.

We spent the previous year (1980) deployed - we started workups in December 79
and the developing crisis gave Ike's crew and airwing reason to prepare for a
war with Iran, not a traditional Cold War deployment with the probability of an
Echo II or a few Foxtrots to keep the "outer zone" defenders well trained in
the art of ASW.

During America's frequent brush wars since WWII, Soviet and other country's
submarines tend to get as far away from the US Navy as possible, for all the
obvious reasons. During 1980, there were few opportunities to cross paths with
subs and in those few cases, our S-3s suffered an embarrassingly common main
computer dump. It was brutally common, and each time, it 'mission killed' the
Viking. More than once, the heat of North Arabian Sea ops up in Gonzo station
downed our birds before they even got airborne, or worse, just as they checked
on station. They brought out tech reps, they tried different procedures (often
just short of the Apollo 13/McGyver-genre of creative engineering), and changed
out hundreds of black boxes, after they failed in the 120 degree weather of the
NAS.

Our squadron patch sported a black and white alleycat sitting on a cloud,
preparing to pounce upon an unsuspecting seaborne mouse with a tiny periscope
on its back, replaced unofficially with a lovely representation of that same
patch with a few differences. The new (and quickly banned) Topcats patch was a
blind, cane tapping cat up in a cloud, above a sea brimming with mice.

The Topcats spent that year involved in every other kind of operation, setting
a few records on the way. One that I recall was 'the longest divert in US
carrier history', a record that has probably fallen by now. During a flight up
in the Persian Gulf, a broken cable in the MAD boom caused the crew to divert
away from the ship, but the only place they could get to, was Dodge. A KA-6E
(God love them) went along as moral support We were already running COD
missions to and from Diego Garcia in stripped out S-3s with gigantic cargo
pods, and ultimately, we were the first stewards of the snow white US Mail
maiden of the sky, Miss Piggy herself. That gave the crew enough confidence to
fly thousands of miles in a damaged aircraft, in a time when getting dip
clearances was tougher than even today. The Topcats did other things, more
directly aimed at the Ayatollah's forces. Glad to have been there to see it,
wondering when we'll ever get OUT of the Mideast for good - leave that region
to the people who want it, if we would pour every resource into finding
alternatives to fossil fuels.. but here I digress.

The Ike did well on that cruise, without a lot of port calls to cloud it's
purpose - we were at sea 351 days that year: 93 days continous steaming, 4
days in Singapore, then an additional 251 days underway, most of them in the
North Arabian Sea, as an instrument of war to drop the hammer on Iran if they
started killing the hostages. We waited that entire year for orders from
President Carter, to go in and pave Iran; what we couldn't know was that the
Soviets had moved forces to Iran's northern border, poised to dart in "coming
to Iran's aid" if we landed a Marine rescue force in Teheran. Christmas brought
the Soviet invasion of Afganistan, chilling the world to the bone. On top of
that, those ****ers in the Walker family were keeping the Soviets up to date on
our deepest secrets. Carter couldn't pull the trigger, but we never knew it.
We wallowed along on a sun-baked flat sea, loading bombs, rigging barricades,
fighting imaginary fires and practicing war drills, for a war that wasn't
coming.

No submarines came, either. I think a couple Topcat crews saw a cowboy on the
surface, but it didn't count as "sub time", so the patch came into existance.
I seriously doubt if any survive.

We had a few interesting moments -- my future Jeopardy "co-star", an F-14 pilot
named 'Burner', earned his immortal callsign by bringing his charred Turkey
down safely, to the cheers of the whole deck crew. Our Chaplain dropped dead
as we departed on our globe-spanning voyage - omen, anyone? The last thing the
Skipper ordered before we left Norfolk was all liberty boats be removed. Not
needed for this one. We passed Africa at 30 knots. Madagascar at 30 knots.
Ike, Virginia, and South Carolina, sailing in a nuclear-powered spearhead
formation for weeks at a time.

I spent the cruise sneaking any kind of ride I could with HS-5, until I had
more than 50 hours and was able to apply for aircrew school. The VS AWs from
my squadron were supportive and went to great lengths to get me ready for AW
A-school, to the point that I was able to challenge the course and graduate
with honors. VS-31's aircrew were a cocky bunch, but they really knew their
stuff. Their failure to find subs was not due to the ASW operators, it was the
balky computers. Think about the date - 1980. Not exactly Pentiums and
128-bit processing. The S-3s computers just plain sucked in that hot, sandy
environment. If anyone could have made them work, AWC Doug Lane probably could
have; it wasn't meant to be. The result was that more and more of VS-31s
missions were SSSC, COD, and tanking. It made my desire to go heloes even more
intense.

/seastory mode off/

v/r
Gordon
====(A+C====
USN SAR

Its always better to lose -an- engine, not -the- engine.