F-18 in Davy Jones Locker

[AJ]

If the ship was taking severe/radical evasive action to avoid a incoming attack, you can't really blame any one group.

That is what a slick deck and rolls to much means. Blame the Houti's or whoever was driving the boat trying to dodge the missiles. Guess they were trying to help out the Sea-Whiz ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanx_CIWS ).

 

[ditrina]

Helicopters, which serve as SAR plane guards, are the first to launch and the last to recover. A spot (space) has to be cleared on the flight deck (usually mid-ship) to launch the helo.

HC-4. Heliocopter Combat Support Squadron

Served aboard USS Independance, USS Lexington (AVT 16) SAR duty. and too many non-av ships to mention.
As far a flight deck ops " You Hadda Be There"
Prayers that no lives were lost!!

 

[STCM(SW)]

Never was on a CV/CVN but did plane guard a few. Saw two that went down on take off fall right in front of the carrier. We searched but never recovered anybody.

 

[fordson]

She had just come out of SLEP and was homeported at Mayport during work ups for our Med Cruise. This was 82-84. We were assigned to CV-17.

I was aboard the FORESTALL for her ‘73-‘74 work ups and MED cruise out of Mayport. She had just come out of a mini-SLEP. That poor ship was in and out of the yards as often as she was on cruise.

 

[AJ]

I was aboard the FORESTALL for her ‘73-‘74 work ups and MED cruise out of Mayport. She had just come out of a mini-SLEP. That poor ship was in and out of the yards as often as she was on cruise.

No SLEP anymore, they cut her up for scrap. The last SLEP she went through they screwed the pooch on the superheaters in the boilers and had to come to Mayport to fix them before we left for the cruise. Ended up being a good cruise. We were looking for a war cruise off Beirut (just after the Barracks bombing). Then Reagan pulled out the Marines. Our cruise turned into a "Love Boat" cruise. It was the 40th Anniversary of the landings in France during WW II, so we showed the flag in every port that you can think of, in France, Spain and Italy. Bad part was we still had to get our flight ops accomplished and were flying 30 days worth of flight hours in about a week and a half. Almost forgot, we went down to Libya to see if Omar wanted to come out and play. Did that twice, once by ourselves and once with the USS America.

 

[LVSteve]

What the Navy doesn't want you to know.

 

[AJ]

What the Navy doesn't want you to know.

View attachment 735321

Is that the No.1 Cat?

 

[Rudi]

+1 on the no lives lost and the ship not getting hit by the oncoming attack. I'm sure the retaliation will be swift and effective.

Bomb them out of the stone age.

 

[murphydog]

Is that the No.1 Cat?

If it isn’t, I wouldn’t want to see number 1!

 

[petepeterson]

70 mil is a sneeze in the DOD budget.
On the bright side, we created some room to get one of those highly-capable F-35 on deck.

 

[AJ]

70 mil is a sneeze in the DOD budget.
On the bright side, we created some room to get one of those highly-capable F-35 on deck.

IIRC an A6-E Tram in the late 1980's was about $50,000,000 a copy. We had 10 per squadron so 1/2 billion there and between $50-$100 million in ground support equipment, test equipment, tools and what not. There were six squadrons, that is quite a chunk of change!

 

[cherrypointmarine]

I was on the USS Midway , CV41 , for a WestPac , 77-78 . I was on a final check crew , working out of the sheet metal shop .

 

[AJ]

I was on the USS Midway , CV41 , for a WestPac , 77-78 . I was on a final check crew , working out of the sheet metal shop .

A Tin Bender (AMS)!! I was a spark chaser (AE)........

 

[bgrafsr]

My buddy was on the Forrestall during the fire. They were rolling 500 pound bombs off the side along with a few aircraft. He screwed up his back and now gets 90% disability from the VA.

 

[Hair Trigger]

Just saw that a $70M F-18 went over the side of the Harry S. Truman because the tow crew lost control. Any carrier squids here who can explain how that could have happened?

Here's a vid from Ward Carroll, who is my go-to for any news related to Naval Aviation. He's a retired F-14 RIO and has some awesome videos, check him out.

 

[Jeff423]

I was on board the Saratoga during it's WestPac cruise in 1972. On that cruise I actually saw an incident where they brought a plane up from the hangar deck to the flight deck. Unfortunately there was a helo parked too close to the edge of the elevator with it's tail rotor folded and over the elevator. The plane hit the tail rotor as it was coming up. This stopped the elevator, so the elevator operator tried again and this time punched a hole in the wing of the plane (an A-7 I think) and tore the tail rotor off the helo.

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

People seems to be taking a casual attitude towards the loss of a $70M plane-paid for with our tax dollars. What do they say in the Army-"A private who loses his rifle is punished more severely than a general who loses a war."

 

[AJ]

People seems to be taking a casual attitude towards the loss of a $70M plane-paid for with our tax dollars. What do they say in the Army-"A private who loses his rifle is punished more severely than a general who loses a war."

Not some much a casual attitude, after all it is pretty much over and done with. I don't think the E-2's - E-4's could pay for it out of their salary. They are being paid more than I was, but still couldn't come up with $70 million..........

The Naval Aviation community had a saying when I was on active duty. It was "That's the breaks of Navair!".