(Paul Michael Brown) wrote:

I've seen fragmentary reports of a Hornet mishap while doing "touch and
goes" at Quantico recently. Sounds wrong to me. Anybody have the gouge?

"Sounds wrong to me"?!?!?!?!

Why? Do you doubt a mishap happened? Do you question the
presence of FA-18s at MCAS Quantico? Do you question FA-18s at
MCAS Quantico doing touch and goes.

The presence of FA-18s at Quantico is a common occurrence. While
HMX-1, the helo squadron based at MCAS Quantico has CH-46 and
CH-53 helos assigned to it to provide most helo support needed by
the activities aboard Quantico, most notably The Basic School,
fixed wing support comes from squadrons based elsewhere. The
FA-18 was probably part of a det from a squadron tasked to
support the "three day war" that is part of the TBS curriculum.

As far as doing "touch and goes", pilots often squeeze in a
couple of landing approaches, time, fuel, and traffic load
permitting, when coming back from a training mission.
Particularly if it is the end of a quarter, and they are
deficient in meeting their non-precision instrument approach
requirements [a condition, IME, common for USMC pilots. They'd
rack up precision instrument approaches by the ton on
cross-countries, but for some reason didn't do non-precision ones
until the end of the NATOPS/MAW/Group required period started
fast approaching.]
--
OJ III
[Email to Yahoo address may be burned before reading.
Lower and crunch the sig and you'll net me at comcast.]