Military Aircraft Pictures & Stories

[CalandLinda]

Originally Posted by Hblick48

Same EC121 that I worked on in 1970, remembered the tail number. Picture taken at Pima Air Museum in 2018.

The super Connie's did just about everything for the USN. In this configuration they were designated R7V.

[Ram Montana High Country]

Originally Posted by CalandLinda

Military Aircraft Pictures & Stories

I’m normally a RV trailer tire poster and have been doing it for about 15 years.

My lifetime work has been in aviation where I served 31 years in the US Navy. All toll I worked actively in the aviation industry nearly 45 years.

Because of this quarantine action all around the country, I thought of shearing some of my pictures and aviation adventures in some of the RV trailer forums I participate in on a regular basis. I’m not going to adhere to a time line. Each post will be a standalone post that took place somewhere in my travels.

In this first post I’ll take you to my first Navy duty assignment right out of boot camp. I did not get any Navy advanced training because my father was a pilot and I already knew aviation basics from a very early age. I wanted to be a Navy pilot and fly off ships but suffered a severe injury to my right hand when 13 that would prevent me from accomplishing that dream. However, the loss of 40-50 % feeling in my right would not prevent me from entering the Navy to seek a career as an aviation structural mechanic.

In April of 1957 I arrived at my first duty station at Naval Air Station Barbers Point, Oahu TH. (Hawaii had not yet become a state).

The squadron I reported to was Air Barrier Squadron 2 which was tasked with providing aborne early warning surveillance from Midway Island to Adak, Alaska with Barbers Point being home base.

The Squadron’s primary aircraft was the Super Connie with the Navy designation WV-2. Training and cargo/personnel movements were done with another version of the Super Connie with the Navy designation R7V. We also had a half dozen conventional beach craft designated SNB.

This has been a preliminary introduction and none of my posts in this thread will come close to the length of this one again

Attachment 6544 Attachment 6545

Attachment 6546 Attachment 6547.

for my benefit - what are the aircraft from top to bottom?

[CalandLinda]

Originally Posted by Ram Montana High Country

for my benefit - what are the aircraft from top to bottom?

The Navy designation for the first two is WV-2 (The Lockheed Super Constellation).

The first on in row 2 is also a Lockheed Super Constellation. Its Navy designation was R7V.

The twin conventional aircraft is a Beech Craft with a Navy designation of SNB-5.

[CalandLinda]

From 1970 – 1973 I served on the Midway with Navy Fighter Squadron 151. During the two long deployments to the South China Seas, camera bugs were allowed access to what was known as “Vultures Row”. That’s where I was when taking this picture. The popular cameras at the time were 35MM and mine was a Yashica.

The aircraft was a C-2A Grayhound. It was our Carrier Onboard Delivery (COD) aircraft. It carried passengers, the US Mail and all sorts of supplies.

The black and yellow tailed Phantom II aircraft in the background belonged to VF-151.

[CalandLinda]

The Davis Monthan AFB at Tucson houses one of the largest military aircraft graveyards in the world. From those aircraft they have restored a few and placed them at various display areas around the base.

The first picture is at the entrance to the graveyard roads. The second is at a designated display area.

We have never stayed at the DMAFB RV FAMCAMP. However, we used all of base facilities, including the golf course. When these pictures were taken we were parked at the Prince of Tucson RV Park for a couple of weeks.

[navybanker]

Here are the Blues and the Birds at NAS Pensacola in 2017. This is as close as I could get! The Birds and Blues practiced one day and the next flew together in their diamond formations along the Florida and Alabama coast.

[CalandLinda]

Naval Air Facility, El Centro is the winter home for the Blue Angles. It also has a very large RV Park whose patrons are mostly snow birds and outnumber the base population before the Blues arrive. All RV Park winter residents may use the enlisted chow hall without reservations for all week day meals. Reservations are required on weekends and holidays.

One year we spent two months in the RV Park and got there one week before the Blues.

The Blues practiced every week day, day light to dark. One day I stopped off at the flight line and took these pictures.

[navybanker]

The last five years we spent six weeks at Oak Grove RV park on NAS Pensacola and watched the Blues practice from the front of the CG. This year our reservation for the month of April was cancelled because of the COVID-19 virus. Hopefully, will be able to go again next year!

[AZ Traveler]

My last flight the day of my retirement ceremony at NAS Lemoore.

[CalandLinda]

Originally Posted by AZ Traveler

My last flight the day of my retirement ceremony at NAS Lemoore.

Well, we have a little in common. When I retired from Navy at NAS Cecil Field I was serving with VFA-132 as their Maintenance Chief.

[CalandLinda]

Originally this aircraft was on display at Naval Air Station Cecil Field, Jacksonville, FL.

When Cecil Field was closed by a BRAC commission, the aircraft was moved to NAS Jacksonville, FL, repainted and put in this display just inside the main gate.

There were nearly 6000 of these aircraft built for WWII. I took the liberty to find a picture of a WWII production line.

[BandBmalin]

Fascinating reading! Thanks for your service from a former Air Force guy! My experiences and aircraft are a bit more contemporary having loaded weapons and maintained B-52s, B-1s, and ending my career with the Warthog (A-10) and it's massive gun. I do remember when the Iron Curtain came down and our bombers on ready alert became a thing of the past. I was also in when our brothers and sisters of the armed forces once again became publicly applauded in society as heroes during/after Desert Storm. It was only 8 1/2 years of my life, but a period I will never forget that has helped shape my life in the civilian world!

[richfaa]

37 years in the Federal Aviation Agency/Administration. We saw our share of aircraft.

[CalandLinda]

Originally Posted by BandBmalin

Fascinating reading! Thanks for your service from a former Air Force guy! My experiences and aircraft are a bit more contemporary having loaded weapons and maintained B-52s, B-1s, and ending my career with the Warthog (A-10) and it's massive gun. I do remember when the Iron Curtain came down and our bombers on ready alert became a thing of the past. I was also in when our brothers and sisters of the armed forces once again became publicly applauded in society as heroes during/after Desert Storm. It was only 8 1/2 years of my life, but a period I will never forget that has helped shape my life in the civilian world!

Here are a couple of pictures I have taken during our RV travels. They are of aircraft you are familiar with.

The first was taken at the Ellsworth AFB aviation museum near Rapid City, SD. I took the second while driving around at the Davis Monthan AFB at Tucson, AZ.

[CalandLinda]

Originally Posted by richfaa

37 years in the Federal Aviation Agency/Administration. We saw our share of aircraft.

I may have a picture of one you have not seen. This is the Convair XFY Pogo.

For a number of years after trying to get it operational, this one was put on display at Naval Air Station, Norfolk, VA. After that, it was moved to the National Air and Space Museum in Suitland, Maryland, where it currently resides.

[BandBmalin]

Wow, a blast from my past to be sure!! I was at Ellsworth for 6 1/2 years and spent a couple weeks working on the B-29 for that museum as they were just beginning to create the museum. (We all were "volunteered" to participate at one time or another.)
Can't tell you how many hours I spent standing on Little Giant ladders inside the bomb bays of the B-1. Worst part of that was having to keep both feet on the same rung. We would be written up for standing with your feet on different rungs. (Military rules...) I have my own Little Giant ladder now and purposely stand with my feet on different rungs all the time just because I can!! The A-10s I worked on had the sharks teeth on the front and flew out of Pope AFB. Thanks for those pics!!

[CalandLinda]

There is a large veteran’s museum on the waterfront at Buffalo. This is one of the many pictures I took while browsing the museum areas.

[CalandLinda]

When traveling in Texas we stay almost exclusively at military RV Parks/CGs. They are everywhere and mostly very nice places to park with FHUs.

These pictures were taken at Laughlin AFB, Del Rio, TX.

Being a training base they have aircraft on display everywhere, with a majority at the main entrance gate.

These two aircraft were found while exploring the internal areas of the base. The first one was found at the golf course and the second was near the entrance to on base housing.

[R.S.O'Donnell]

Military campgrounds are our first choice as well.

Holloman AFB, Alamogordo, NM

For some reason I was expecting drones to be smaller.

As a special treat we got to hear a sonic boom from the HHSTT while we were there. There is a really good museum in town too. https://www.nmspacemuseum.org

White Sands has a good one too. The museum was closed when we went but the outside park is worth the trip all by itself. http://www.wsmr-history.org

[CalandLinda]

These aircraft ore on display at NAS Lemoore, CA.
They are a F/A-18 - A-1 - A-7 - A-4.