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Old March 23rd 06, 09:58 PM posted to rec.aviation.military.naval
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Default "End of an era: USN's Tomcats make their final approach before decommissioning"

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Mike,

That's a really interesting article - not only from the Tomcat
retirement point of view, but in general. Thank you for posting it!


The carrier came on
station on 5 October 2005, and its jets flew (almost) daily combat
missions on a 24-hour cycle.


Well, that is great they did not forget to add the word "almost". Is it
possible for a CVW to operate day and night at the same readiness
level? I guess the flight ops ran mostly one half of the day, with only
some CAS alert aicraft during the other...


We had, if I recall, a grand total of three no-fly days the entire time we
were in-theatre. For three months, damn near non-stop, we flew planes from
1100 to 0100 or 0200. I know this because I was on that deployment, working
in one of the avionics shops. When we weren't flying, we had the alert 15s
posted on cats 1 and 2. If we weren't flying, we were ready to. So, to
answer your question, yes, it is quite possible for a CVW to maintain at
least a 75% FMC (fully mission capable) status flying day after day after
day after day after FRIGGIN DAY. It wasn't fun though. I'd like to think us
ATs in AIMD had something to do with that :-).



During the deployment a small handful of between six and eight Hornets
and Prowlers were sent ashore to Al Asad air base.


Official Navy News said that was during the carrier's port call. I
wonder if it was made for the first time, or is it a common practice?


EA-6Bs have been forward deployed for a while, I know our Shadowhaks
(VAQ-141) replaced another group of prowlers from the carrier we relieved
(can't remember which one) and the prowlers from the Reagan replaced ours.
Forward-deploying the hornets, though, was new. As far as I know, we're the
only carrier that's done that.


CVW-8 does
no organic tanking for its strike aircraft. The carrier's
tanker-configured S-3 Vikings are used as recovery tankers only.


That's interesting. How the Navy is going to provide organic tanking
with only about four of F/A-18E/F configured for that mission, whereas
they cannot do that with 6 or 8 Vikings?


KC-10s and KC-135s can hold a hell of a lot more fuel than an S-3 or a KA-18
can. However, the KA-18 (my name, don't know if that's the real name) can
hold a surprising amount of fuel. They look pretty funny with 5 fuel tanks
on them.


The F-14Ds are also armed with a 20 mm M61 Vulcan cannon and,
extraordinarily, these guns were used for ground strafing on two
occasions by VF-213 (and also by F/A-18Cs).


Reportedly the gun is one of favourite air-to-ground weapons of USMC
Hornet drivers (no VMFA embarked for this cruise), but never before I
heard about Tomcats doing ground strafing. Was it too heavy?


The CO came on the 1MC the night the first strafe was done. We were all
pretty impressed. I talked to the pilot that did the strafing and he said it
was probably the coolest thing he's ever done, ever. Tomcats don't usually
strafe because they don't usually need to. When's the last time you've heard
about any (navy, marines are crazy) plane using its gun? It just doesn't
happen very often, but the irony is that a tomcat using its gun to strafe a
ground target was about the last thing the designers EVER thought it would
do. Air-to-ground offense is the very antithesis of its intended role,
air-to-air defense. It just goes to show what a fantastically great aircraft
the Tomcat was. The ground crews refused to clean the gun blast off the
nose, it was a badge of honor! They went as far as to tape over it while
they were washing the bird. I sobbed like a little girl when the final
Tomcat fly-by went down. I have the video if anybody's interested, I shot it
myself :-).

The strafing wasn't the only new thing the tomcats did this cruise. They
also came up with a way (called JEDI or RANGER or some other stupid acronym)
for forces on the ground to beam video straight into a Tomcat cockpit. The
pilots could look at the target the same way marines were looking at the
target and it increased situational awareness a thousandfold because then
the pilots could tell exactly where the marines were and they didn't have to
guide the pilots into the target by talking any more.

Oh, and S-3s can go to hell. VS-24 especially, if you're reading, learn how
to use goddamn ISAR, retards!

V/R
AT2(AW) Jason Hartberger
USS Theodore Roosevelt CVN-71




Best regards,
Jacek Z.