Humorous Naval Air Flight Experiences

The A4D was the worst for me with that damned "biscuit" which
housed
it all. The ARC-27 was my bread and butter gear. Easy to
diagnose
problems. Using the bicycle pump always attracted the
attention of the
other shops. The only gear I never really understood was the
APX-6
transponder. I always kept a wary eye on that live round .45
shell
aimed at the Top Secret cavitron.

Ah ha, the old ASQ-17. It was used on the A4D, F-8U, and believe
the F-11.

Leanne

(Paul Michael Brown) wrote in
news
The only gear I never really understood was the APX-6
transponder. I always kept a wary eye on that live round .45 shell
aimed at the Top Secret cavitron.

This cries out for further explanation. From context, I assume the
idea was to prevent the bad guys from reverse engineering the IFF and
figuring out a method to interrogate it. But was the self destruct
mechanism *really* a live .45 calibre shell?

I don't think so, but there was a CAD in each of the three cavities to
destroy them, The idea was to keep the bad guys from determining the
operating frequency, which, at that time, was changed every day. Later
on, after an intact unit was compromised, the SIF coder was added to the
system and the frequencies were fixed at 1030 and 1090 MHz. Mode 4 came
much later.

"Dave Kearton" wrote in
message ...

"vincent p. norris" wrote in message

|| .....we finally got to try our hand at landing on water......
|
| As I keep pointing out to a friend who flew P5Ms, (but he doesn't seem
| to understand the English language), you can't "land" on water. You
| land on land, and "water" on water. (:-))



I tried that once out of the door of a moving bus, talk about getting
your
own back.


My grandfather, Naval Aviator #711, told me about standing up in the cockpit
and peeing over the side of his plane.

Try that in an F-18!

Bob McKellar

"Bob McKellar" wrote in message


| My grandfather, Naval Aviator #711, told me about standing up in the
| cockpit and peeing over the side of his plane.
|
| Try that in an F-18!
|
| Bob McKellar



#711 is an impressive number, I'm only guessing that would be mid to late
'30s


Did he explain the leather helmet that was only mouldy on one side ?





--

Cheers


Dave Kearton

Dave Kearton wrote:
I always thought the 'correct' term was alighting, that is if you do it
correctly.

Yeah, I was gonna mention that, but "alighting" sounds so... cold and
clinical.

Some funny things happen in the training commands, sometimes due to
student stress (helmet fires) and sometimes for miscellaneous
reasons. I never did anything extraordinary (good or bad) myself,
but I did know some interesting people.

One guy took the wrong aircraft on his solo. Got his assignment from
the duty, went to maintenance to review the records, but somehow
ended up preflighting and strapping into the wrong bird. The
squadron called him up on radio (by his last name) when he was in the
practice area and said "Look out on your wing..." (the tail number is
also on the wing in HUGE letters) I was jealous because he got to do
the solo over again.

Another guy had already got kicked out of the program during API
(ground school). Couldn't get past the navigation test, which
emphasized, among other things, fuel management. Oddly enough he
already had a private ticket. One weekend he rented a plane and
crashed it after running out of gas. Gotta admit the writing was on
the wall for that one... it's funny because no one was hurt. The
plane was totalled but no post crash fire.

There was a story going around about an international student
(English not his mother tongue) who was in the home field break on a
solo and mixed up runway 23 and 32 (the field had both).

Actually, one of the dumbest things I did was when a primary
instructor asked me a serious question, what did I want to fly? I
confidently (cockily?) said I wanted dirigibles, because then I'd
have the half-wing pin. I wish I knew what the hell I was thinking
when I said that.

ARC-1 in rear of AF.

"Dave in San diego" wrote in message
. ..
Greasy Rider wrote in
:

On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 12:44:36 -0800, "W. D. Allen Sr."
postulated :
For what it's worth...

(snipped)

It was a dark and stormy night aboard the Intrepid in the fall of
1957. A twenty year old Aviation Electronics Tech (AT3) was tasked
with replacing the UHF radio (ARC-27) in FJ-3M number 204 tied down on
the flight deck.

[remainder redacted]

You had to go and do it - bring up old painful memories. The ARC-27 was
my second least favorite piece of tron gear to replace. The ARN-21 TACAN
ranked first, primarily because of its generally more difficult location
in the a/c. Can you believe they still had those boat anchors around into
the 80s?

Dave in San Diego
O-level Tweet ('70 - '75)

"STOOFs" were the S2Fs.

"Dave in San diego" wrote in message
. ..
Greasy Rider wrote in
:

On Wed, 12 Jan 2005 01:34:34 GMT, Dave in San diego
postulated :

You had to go and do it - bring up old painful memories. The ARC-27
was my second least favorite piece of tron gear to replace. The ARN-21
TACAN ranked first, primarily because of its generally more difficult
location in the a/c. Can you believe they still had those boat anchors
around into the 80s?

I worked on FJ-3M, F9F, F11F, AD-6, and A4D.
The A4D was the worst for me with that damned "biscuit" which housed
it all. The ARC-27 was my bread and butter gear. Easy to diagnose
problems. Using the bicycle pump always attracted the attention of the
other shops. The only gear I never really understood was the APX-6
transponder. I always kept a wary eye on that live round .45 shell
aimed at the Top Secret cavitron.

Oh, the APX-6 was actually one of the easiest pieces I got to work with.
I saw it in "A" School, and briefly in the fleet before they transitioned
to the APX-72. The 72 was another item requiring the bicycle pump.

Speaking of that, when I was in Brunswick, we were having problems with
the 27s in some visiting EA-3s. Would work OK on the ground, and on
climb-out but would fail at altitude. When we went to AIMD and asked what
pressure they were pumped up to, the techs replied, "We never pump them
up, Stoofs don't go that high." Needless to say, after the **** flowed
downhill, ALL gear requiring pressurization was properly serviced from
then on.

Dave in San Diego

Try peeing in the rear seat of an AF while wearing a "poopy" suit.

"Bob McKellar" wrote in message
...

"Dave Kearton" wrote in
message ...

"vincent p. norris" wrote in message

|| .....we finally got to try our hand at landing on water......
|
| As I keep pointing out to a friend who flew P5Ms, (but he doesn't seem
| to understand the English language), you can't "land" on water. You
| land on land, and "water" on water. (:-))



I tried that once out of the door of a moving bus, talk about getting
your
own back.


My grandfather, Naval Aviator #711, told me about standing up in the
cockpit
and peeing over the side of his plane.

Try that in an F-18!

Bob McKellar

Repaired many an ARC-27 @ Whiting Field in the '70s.
Tough radio.
Jim