Are they phasing out the S-3 too?

"Mike Kanze" wrote:

Gord,

Thanks for the share. Sounds like the winter wx on P.E.I. is much nastier
than that afflicting the Puget Sound / Georgia Straits corner of the world.
Then, too, both Comox and Whidbey are in the lee of mountains that block
much of the really bad stuff, leaving both fields usually with nothing worse
than a duty 2K foot clag layer.

Well, it can get disagreeable at times for sure...the systems
spawn off the East coast of Fla then track up the East coast and
veer East out over the North Atlantic after giving us a little
love tap. Had a great winter last year, very little snow, can't
say the same for this one.

Unfortunately, our generation never got a regular exchange going with the
Comox folks. I suppose this was due to a lack of common community interest
(Comox - VP, Whidbey - VA & VAQ). Now that Whidbey is much more a VP base,
I wonder if this has changed.


Yes, hopefully, those exchanges can certainly be fun, and
educational too.

Is Comox still active, and if so, in what capacity?


Yes it is...407 Maritime Patrol sqn is still there, the same one
that you visited...been there since the mid fifties equipped with
Lancasters then, later with P2V-7 then Argus.

One thing's for sure - no more Argus.

Sadly true...it was by far the best aircraft ever made for the
Flight Engineer trade. Only aircraft that I know of where the
pilots never touch the throttles...engineer has full and
exclusive control of the engines and all the aircraft systems.

Makes for an ideal ASW platform. Pilots can keep their full
attention outside the a/c while the F/E looks after the
housekeeping duties
--

-Gord.
(use gordon in email)

On Wed, 02 Feb 2005 22:00:20 GMT, Gord Beaman
wrote:

Thanks for the share. Sounds like the winter wx on P.E.I. is much nastier
than that afflicting the Puget Sound / Georgia Straits corner of the world.
Then, too, both Comox and Whidbey are in the lee of mountains that block
much of the really bad stuff, leaving both fields usually with nothing worse
than a duty 2K foot clag layer.

Well, it can get disagreeable at times for sure...the systems
spawn off the East coast of Fla then track up the East coast and
veer East out over the North Atlantic after giving us a little
love tap. Had a great winter last year, very little snow, can't
say the same for this one.

We got "tapped" at NAS Quonset, too. :-)

We usually got rain mixed with heavy, wet snow that washed away fairly
quickly. But sometimes we got heavy, wet snow then deep cold. Not a
good combination. :-)

One thing's for sure - no more Argus.

Sadly true...it was by far the best aircraft ever made for the
Flight Engineer trade. Only aircraft that I know of where the
pilots never touch the throttles...engineer has full and
exclusive control of the engines and all the aircraft systems.

We had a couple of Argus visit at Quonset. I watched one start up and
thought, "My God, he's on fire!" I have NEVER seen any aircraft
(including the old C-124 Globemaster) put out quite so much smoke on
start! I hope you had an oil quantity transmitter!!!!! ;-)

Makes for an ideal ASW platform. Pilots can keep their full
attention outside the a/c while the F/E looks after the
housekeeping duties

Was the aircraft commander also the mission commander? Did you guys
have NFO-type ASW specialists?

Bill Kambic

wrote:

We had a couple of Argus visit at Quonset. I watched one start up and
thought, "My God, he's on fire!" I have NEVER seen any aircraft
(including the old C-124 Globemaster) put out quite so much smoke on
start! I hope you had an oil quantity transmitter!!!!! ;-)


Yes they did do that for sure...pretty big engine (almost as big
as the Globemaster). Yes, oil quantity indicator for each engine
and each engine's oil tank held 54 Imperial gallons.

Makes for an ideal ASW platform. Pilots can keep their full
attention outside the a/c while the F/E looks after the
housekeeping duties

Was the aircraft commander also the mission commander? Did you guys
have NFO-type ASW specialists?

Bill Kambic

With very rare exceptions he was, yes, and our ASW specialists
were called AESOP's for Airbourne Electronic System OPerators.

Quite a long intensive course because they all need to be
qualified on all systems. Most were non-commissioned. About 10 on
a full Argus crew, plus two navigators, two pilots and two Flight
Engineers.





--

-Gord.
(use gordon in email)