Pechs,

Your various observations from your USAF exchange tour reminded me of a
visit paid the west coast A-6 community by a couple of Blue Suit 'Vark types
during the early 1970s.

Since the FB-111A and the A-6A had roughly similar capabilities (night /
all-wx full-system attack), we were very interested in what these folks had
to say about the 'Vark. What floored many of us though was the near blind
faith these two guys had in the reliability of the "Vark's black boxes,
especially since the 'Vark of that era was still first generation. This of
course was heresy to an A-6A community very used to a less-than-a-hop system
reliability and whack-a-mole circuit breaker management.

These guys may well have been indulging themselves in a bit of inter-service
bravado with their description of the 'Vark's capabilities. However, we got
the very distinct impression that they would have unknowingly pranged into
the John Day River canyon walls had they been flying a night OB-16 low level
mission through eastern Oregon with an errant 'Vark system.

--
Mike Kanze

"I'm developing an insincere optimism to complement my artificial sense of
urgency."

- Dilbert, 12/11/03


"Pechs1" wrote in message
...
geezzzer- Got any good stories about the AF JOs, jets, upper echelon or
rules
you'd
like to share with us? BRBR

Nothing major, Just stood tall before the wing commander for things like
rolling up my sleeves, wearing brown boots, flying too close when coming
into
the overhead..

Many JOs leaving at this time(late 70's) for the airlines. Not a lot of
happy
campers but really good pilots. I think there was more than a little SAC
tainted guys around that saw how wierd SAC was during the SE Asia war
games.

Plus some O-6s that were transitioning to the F-4 for the first time that
were
pretty scary. A B-52 suadron CO that was going to an F-4 wing in Germany.

How they chose their COs still amazes me. Wing Commander picks his COs.
When
the Wing Commander is new all sorts of O-5s show up suddenly to rush those
jobs.

My Ops officer went across the state to a O-2 base to try to get a
squadron
there, flying Cessna push-pulls, which were all down for shucking their
aft
prop, taking off the tails...
P. C. Chisholm
CDR, USN(ret.)
Old Phart Phormer Phantom, Turkey, Viper, Scooter and Combat Buckeye
Phlyer