Military Aircraft Pictures & Stories

[CalandLinda]

During our last visit to Harrah's Cherokee Casino (NC) I found this little blue angel on display at a men's shop. Sorry, I didn't check the price as we were just window-shopping on the way back to our room.

[Gubs]

101 All the Way!!!

[mlh]

I have a new Citizen watch like in the picture. Years ago a railroad watch had to keep time within a minute a day. Then the Bulova Accutron came along and it could keep time within a minute a month. The the standard quartz watch is was good for fifteen seconds a month. Now some quartz watches are for a second a year with some that keep tack of GPS satellites that are good for one second every 10,000 years.
Lynwood

[CalandLinda]

From 1970 to 1973 I was attached to Navy Fighter Squadron 151 F4-B/N aircraft. We were operating off the USS Midway. During that time we made two long (7 mo & 11 mo) deployments to the South China Sea.

That's me in the first picture. I was working as the Line Division Supervisor and spent my working hours on the flight deck. I didn't stay in that billet very long as I had previously spent 3 years with another F4 squadron and they wanted me in a maintenance billet. I ended-up as the check crew supervisor.

[CalandLinda]

If you have access to military CGs, the one aboard Laughlin AFB at Del Rio, TX is an excellent stop.

These aircraft are on display at the main base entrance.

[CalandLinda]

After completing factory training on the A7 Corsair II at Dallas, TX I worked for three A7 squadrons and Light Attack Wing One.

From 1966 – 1970 I was with VA-174 at NAS Cecil Field, FL (shore duty).

From 1973 – 1977 I was with VA-125 at Naval Air Station Lemoore, CA (shore duty).

My only sea duty assignment was with VA-46 at NAS Cecil Field FL from 1983-1985. I did one entire cruse with that squadron aboard the USS America, CV-66.

I did one year on limited duty at CLAW1, NAS Cecil Field where I was a manpower analyst for the A7 east coast community. I had earned that classification code on shore duty with CINCLANTFLT, Norfolk, VA.

[CalandLinda]

For me this is quite a historical picture. I served on both of these carriers when their designation was CVA.

In early 1965 I was a member of VF-41 (F4-B). We deployed aboard the USS Independence CVA-62 from the Atlantic fleet’s 6th fleet to the Pacific fleet’s 1st fleet, from Norfolk, VA. It was a 7 month cruise and I worked on the flight deck for the entire cruise as a squadron airframes troubleshooter.

I reported to VF-151 (F4-B/N) for duty in July of 1970. During my three years in that squadron we made two long deployments to the South China Seas from Alameda, CA aboard the USS Midway CVA-41. I started out as the line division supervisor. However, because of my previous experience with the F4 I was assigned to the aircraft division as the calendar maintenance supervisor. We did periodic inspections on squadron aircraft.

Right after I went to shore duty in 1973 the Midway was forward deployed to Japan. In this picture, the Midway is being relieved from forward deployment by the Indy. The place? Pearl Harbor. Hawaii was my first duty station out of boot camp.

[CalandLinda]

Blackhawk country, Naval Air Station, Corpus Christi, TX.

[CalandLinda]

During my time with Navy Fighter Squadron 41 (1977 – 1980) I befriended a squadron flight officer, LCDR Lindner. He always took a camera aloft with him. I have a lot of his pictures and will start showing them here.

I’m showing these two pictures together to show the extremes of the sweep-wing F14.

[R.S.O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by CalandLinda

After completing factory training on the A7 Corsair II at Dallas, TX I worked for three A7 squadrons and Light Attack Wing One.

From 1966 – 1970 I was with VA-174 at NAS Cecil Field, FL (shore duty).

From 1973 – 1977 I was with VA-125 at Naval Air Station Lemoore, CA (shore duty).

My only sea duty assignment was with VA-46 at NAS Cecil Field FL from 1983-1985. I did one entire cruse with that squadron aboard the USS America, CV-66.

I did one year on limited duty at CLAW1, NAS Cecil Field where I was a manpower analyst for the A7 east coast community. I had earned that classification code on shore duty with CINCLANTFLT, Norfolk, VA.

My wife's dad was a boiler operator at the steam plant at Cecil while you were there.

[hemiallen]

Thank you, and all the other posters, for your service.

Great pictures, and stories.

I worked for a Gov't facility that did Nuclear weapons tests at the Nevada Test Site, and was a Mechanical Technician supporting Physicists designing, fabricating and deploying X-ray Diagnostics packages that went downhole with the Nuke out in the desert, from 1980-1992 when they ceased nuclear weapons testing.

In the early 80's we were traveling in the northern area of the NTS, I was driving and my passenger was a Military nerd, and he see's an airplane north of us, which is Area 51 and the Tonopah Test Range. He mentions that it is an odd looking, very large swept wing craft, much larger than he had seen before. I'm like, Cool, and we continued on to our jobsite. Coming home that afternoon, the only radio station we could as usual was KDWN, and they were live at I believe Nellis, at the first unveiling of the F117A, I believe, airplane. He said that must be what we had seen.

After NTS ceased testing, we moved on to other testing, ahem, and I got to travel to many military sites. One that has a B-52, and several early helicopters is on the Abq, Nm military base. They even have a scale replica of Fat Man. Most of that gated area is home to Sandia Nat'l Labs, and a really neat huge bridge-like structure that they do electronics testing on. I saw my first B1 there, getting ready to be run out on the platform. Man the landing gear is tall.

Thanks for all the images

Allen

[Mikendebbie]

That bridge-like structure was called “The Trestle”. It was built in 1977-78 by Allen M Campbell Construction (Tyler Tx) and was the largest glu-lam structure in the world at the time. It has no metal components above the foundations. All connections, nuts and bolts, are glu-lam wood, as any metal would react or interfere with the tests. I was working for the company at the time and I have one of the wood nuts and bolts on my desk. It was built to figure out how to make communications systems on Air Force One work and penetrate a nuclear cloud where the electrons are quite active. From time to time I wondered if they were still using it.

[hemiallen]

Interesting, I did hear it was all wood. Someone said that canyon had a fire and the structure was damaged? It was operational and looked good when I saw it. I also worked there, but on another pulse machine, from 1992-95, traveling from Livermore.

Last I was there was 2004, did "materials testing" on Z machine.

I did get to see AF-1 on the North-east end tarmac in 1993, working on another project ( electronics pulse chamber-near where I saw the helicopters parked-Maxwell Labs), it was the infamous incident when the airport was closed while Bill got his haircut. Snipers were on the old quanset type buildings where I was, I walked towards the 10' fence for a closer look, then saw folks walking my way, and noticed the snipers. That evening, or maybe the next day, it was all over the news.

[Ram Montana High Country]

This looks like an almost identical display to Dyess AFB Lubbock, just there three weeks ago

[CalandLinda]

One time we parked at the Circus Circus RV Park on the Vegas Strip for a couple of weeks. Our close friends and sometime traveling companion’s daughter was getting married there and lots of family and friends came for the festivities.

My brother Richard flew out for a long weekend. Even though he had badly damaged hands from a fire when he was young, he loved golfing. LB Floyd - Raymond Floyd’s father – Designed and built club grips for Richard and got them approved by the USGA for his use.

Nellis AFB has a well kept par 72 golf course and we went out there to play a round. While there I took pictures of Richard posing with display aircraft. Here are a few of them.