Humorous Naval Air Flight Experiences

For what it's worth...

At the Naval Academy in the early 1950s we got fam flights in N3N
floatplanes. It was great fun. The engine flywheel had to be hand cranked to
provide the energy to turn over the engine to get it started. The plane then
pushed off the Severn River bank by white hat crewmen. We nuggets sat in the
front cockpit while the pilot (a naval aviator from the USNA faculty) was in
the back. We got to make climbs, descents, turns etc. until we finally got
to try our hand at landing on water (more difficult than land).

The day that really sticks in my memory was when we were returning from the
Chesapeake Bay and the prop suddenly flew off (later learned it was a fairly
common event with those old N3Ns). The pilot just stopcocked the throttle
and assumed glide speed. He had to maneuver between the yawl sailboats on
the river before setting us down. Then we sat for an hour until all the
other "healthy" N3Ns were hauled out of the water before a power launch
could come out to tow us to the ramp. I thought it was a lot more fun than
ever being chief engineer in a destroyer. I was convinced that Naval Air was
the way to go at graduation.

Don't know what they do for fam fights at Mother Bancroft today.

WDA
USNA '53

end

On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 12:44:36 -0800, "W. D. Allen Sr."
postulated :
For what it's worth...

(snipped)

It was a dark and stormy night aboard the Intrepid in the fall of
1957. A twenty year old Aviation Electronics Tech (AT3) was tasked
with replacing the UHF radio (ARC-27) in FJ-3M number 204 tied down on
the flight deck. The radio set was mounted in the nose and the top
cover of the nose was held by Tzus (sp?) fasteners at the rear while
the front had two tangs that slipped into sockets forward. This
unnamed AT3 popped the fasteners and the metal cover became airborne
and was gone in the wind.

Some soul was taking a smoke break on the fan tail and saw a dark
shadow hit in the water. Man Over Board was quickly sounded and CVA-11
slowly started circling with her two DDE plane guards. Search lights
lit up the North Atlantic and there was much mustering of all hands
and naturally 15 or 20 are missing in a crew of maybe 3,500.

The AT3 knew that the cover would be found and dusted for finger
prints. The AT3 knew that the Navy would charge him for all fuel oil
and expenses encountered. The AT3 slipped quietly into the cat walk
and went to muster. The AT3 reported to his Shop Chief the next
morning that he noticed the nose cover of 204 was missing.

Has the statute of limitations run out from 1957?

Greasy Rider wrote in
:

On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 12:44:36 -0800, "W. D. Allen Sr."
postulated :
For what it's worth...

(snipped)

It was a dark and stormy night aboard the Intrepid in the fall of
1957. A twenty year old Aviation Electronics Tech (AT3) was tasked
with replacing the UHF radio (ARC-27) in FJ-3M number 204 tied down on
the flight deck.

[remainder redacted]

You had to go and do it - bring up old painful memories. The ARC-27 was
my second least favorite piece of tron gear to replace. The ARN-21 TACAN
ranked first, primarily because of its generally more difficult location
in the a/c. Can you believe they still had those boat anchors around into
the 80s?

Dave in San Diego
O-level Tweet ('70 - '75)

.....we finally got to try our hand at landing on water......

As I keep pointing out to a friend who flew P5Ms, (but he doesn't seem
to understand the English language), you can't "land" on water. You
land on land, and "water" on water. (:-))

vince norris (who, in more than six years as a Naval Aviator, never
got to make a single watering.)

On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 01:34:34 GMT, Dave in San diego
postulated :

You had to go and do it - bring up old painful memories. The ARC-27 was
my second least favorite piece of tron gear to replace. The ARN-21 TACAN
ranked first, primarily because of its generally more difficult location
in the a/c. Can you believe they still had those boat anchors around into
the 80s?

I worked on FJ-3M, F9F, F11F, AD-6, and A4D.
The A4D was the worst for me with that damned "biscuit" which housed
it all. The ARC-27 was my bread and butter gear. Easy to diagnose
problems. Using the bicycle pump always attracted the attention of the
other shops. The only gear I never really understood was the APX-6
transponder. I always kept a wary eye on that live round .45 shell
aimed at the Top Secret cavitron.

On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 21:18:41 -0500, vincent p. norris
postulated :
.....we finally got to try our hand at landing on water......

As I keep pointing out to a friend who flew P5Ms, (but he doesn't seem
to understand the English language), you can't "land" on water. You
land on land, and "water" on water. (:-))

vince norris (who, in more than six years as a Naval Aviator, never
got to make a single watering.)

Would "surfacing" be more appropriate?

And I guess that means one does "splash and dashes" in a seadrome, as one
does "touch and goes" ashore? g

--
Mike Kanze

"Boy, I feel safer now that [Martha Stewart's] behind bars. O.J. & Kobe are
walking around free, but they take the ONE woman in America willing to cook
and clean and work in the yard and haul her ass to jail."

- Tim Allen



"vincent p. norris" wrote in message
...
.....we finally got to try our hand at landing on water......

As I keep pointing out to a friend who flew P5Ms, (but he doesn't seem
to understand the English language), you can't "land" on water. You
land on land, and "water" on water. (:-))

vince norris (who, in more than six years as a Naval Aviator, never
got to make a single watering.)

"vincent p. norris" wrote in message

|| .....we finally got to try our hand at landing on water......
|
| As I keep pointing out to a friend who flew P5Ms, (but he doesn't seem
| to understand the English language), you can't "land" on water. You
| land on land, and "water" on water. (:-))



I tried that once out of the door of a moving bus, talk about getting your
own back.



|
| vince norris (who, in more than six years as a Naval Aviator, never
| got to make a single watering.)



I always thought the 'correct' term was alighting, that is if you do it
correctly.



--

Cheers


Dave Kearton

The only gear I never really understood was the APX-6
transponder. I always kept a wary eye on that live round .45 shell
aimed at the Top Secret cavitron.

This cries out for further explanation. From context, I assume the idea
was to prevent the bad guys from reverse engineering the IFF and figuring
out a method to interrogate it. But was the self destruct mechanism
*really* a live .45 calibre shell?

Greasy Rider wrote in
:

On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 01:34:34 GMT, Dave in San diego
postulated :

You had to go and do it - bring up old painful memories. The ARC-27
was my second least favorite piece of tron gear to replace. The ARN-21
TACAN ranked first, primarily because of its generally more difficult
location in the a/c. Can you believe they still had those boat anchors
around into the 80s?

I worked on FJ-3M, F9F, F11F, AD-6, and A4D.
The A4D was the worst for me with that damned "biscuit" which housed
it all. The ARC-27 was my bread and butter gear. Easy to diagnose
problems. Using the bicycle pump always attracted the attention of the
other shops. The only gear I never really understood was the APX-6
transponder. I always kept a wary eye on that live round .45 shell
aimed at the Top Secret cavitron.

Oh, the APX-6 was actually one of the easiest pieces I got to work with.
I saw it in "A" School, and briefly in the fleet before they transitioned
to the APX-72. The 72 was another item requiring the bicycle pump.

Speaking of that, when I was in Brunswick, we were having problems with
the 27s in some visiting EA-3s. Would work OK on the ground, and on
climb-out but would fail at altitude. When we went to AIMD and asked what
pressure they were pumped up to, the techs replied, "We never pump them
up, Stoofs don't go that high." Needless to say, after the **** flowed
downhill, ALL gear requiring pressurization was properly serviced from
then on.

Dave in San Diego