Typhoid

March Field? hmmmm have to see if I can pull off a US Customs visit........

now a "D" maybe...........

I don't think any Tomcat pilot would realistically state that his plane could outdo a Lawn Dart at the merge or after. The Tomcat's killing capability was in first shot capability before the merge.

oops is right. there goes a few more careers..........

From 2006, the retirement of the last C-141 - The Hanoi Taxi A Bit of military history you might be interested in seeing. C-141 Tail Number 60177 was the last of the 285 C-141's built by Lockheed to leave active service. She flew 100 POWs out of Hanoi on 12 February 1973, some of them tasting freedom for the first time in six years. Each POW put their shot-down date on the face of the oxygen panel during their flight to Clark Air Base in the Philippines . For her retirement ceremony, some of the POWs she brought home were brought back for the ceremony and one last flight by this gracious lady. Most of them are old men now but their enthusiasm, emotions, and excitement were evident during this flight and retirement ceremony. She was then flown to Dayton , Ohio where she will spend her final days in the Air Force Museum. A very touching video - Be sure to turn on the sound.

since the Vietnam War was over a decade - question #1 is somewhat vague, as is 2. how soon do you need this?

back when I was flying the E-4B (over 20 yrs ago) we pulled a couple of alert tours there billeted in the CAP bunkers next to the parked aircraft. interesting place....... hot, soggy, mosquitos, etc....... what details exactly are you asking about? great airfield.

saw a preview and a great write up. I'm not sure I could handle watching it until both my sons are back. (there goes my tough guy image...............)

that's awesome!! Dave, outstanding weapon!! I'd love to come out and pop a few rounds!!

I rolled in on two with a flight of 4 F-18C's; shot Harpoons, Harms, Mavricks, dropped bombs, score - 4 Hornets in the drink................... This one is a tough opponent!!

but will it work............?

a very sad, tragic and preventable crash. ---------------------------------------------------- 13 Disciplined in Fatal Hornet Crash March 04, 2009 Associated Press SAN DIEGO - A pilot struggling to control a crippled Marine Corps jet bypassed a chance to land at a coastal Navy base and instead flew toward an inland base, where minutes later the fighter crashed into a San Diego neighborhood and killed four people, recordings released Tuesday revealed. Meanwhile, military officials say that four officers at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar have been relieved of duty in connection with the fatal crash and nine other military personnel received lesser reprimands. Officials said the 13 were disciplined for a series of avoidable mechanical and human errors that led to the crash, which killed four members of the same family, including two children. "It was collectively bad decision-making," said Col. John Rupp, operations officer for the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar. Hear the entire audio transmission. Recordings of conversations between federal air controllers and the pilot of the F/A-18D Hornet show the pilot repeatedly was offered a chance to land the plane at the Naval Air Station North Island in Coronado. The base sits at the tip of a peninsula with a flight path over water. Instead, the Federal Aviation Administration tapes disclose, the pilot decided to fly the jet, which had lost one engine and was showing signs of trouble with the second, to the inland Miramar base, which is about 10 miles north of Coronado. That route took him over the University City neighborhood, where the Dec. 8 crash incinerated two homes and damaged three others. "This was a tragic incident that could have been prevented," Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who was among the lawmakers who received a closed-door briefing Tuesday on the results of the Marine Corps' investigation into the crash, said in a statement. The pilot and senior officers "did not consult their checklists and follow appropriate procedure," Hunter said. Had those rules been followed, "the crash would not have occurred." Four officers at Miramar have been relieved of duty for failing to follow safety procedures and allowing the Hornet to fly over the residential area, while nine other military personnel received lesser reprimands. According to the military, the jet's right engine went out due to an oil leak shortly after the fighter left the deck of the Navy aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln on a training flight. The aircraft can fly on one engine, so losing power in one of the General Electric turbofan engines was not cause for extreme concern. At the same time, the plane was having trouble moving fuel from its tanks to the engines. Marine Corps aviation rules dictate that a plane with such a combination of mechanical failures should land immediately. The investigation determined the best and safest option was to bring the aircraft down at Coronado, not Miramar. As the jet approached Miramar, the left engine failed because it was getting too little fuel, leaving the plane without power. Seventeen seconds later, the pilot ejected. "This plane should not have even been in use," Rep. Susan Davis, D-Calif., said in a statement. "There was ambiguity as to whether this particular aircraft should have been grounded due to the mechanical concerns." It's difficult to determine the pilot's precise location from the tapes, but he reported his position as 20 miles south of Coronado, flying at 13,000 feet with 20 to 30 minutes of fuel remaining, less than a minute before he was asked by controllers if he wanted to land at Coronado, according to the recordings. When air controllers told him a runway was available at Coronado, the pilot said, "I'm actually going to try to take it to Miramar if possible." According to the tapes, air controllers gave the pilot instructions that would allow for a landing at Coronado or Miramar. At one point he was given a heading to follow but indicated he was having trouble with the jet. "I'm trying, sir, but single engine," the pilot said. The pilot said he wanted to land at Miramar and told controllers to have emergency crews ready on the ground. The pilot told the air controllers at one point he was within sight of Miramar, but about two minutes later, according to the tapes, an unidentified pilot reported seeing smoke on the ground near Miramar. The pilot ejected safely. The Marine Corps has not decided whether to discipline him, Hunter told The Associated Press. Four members of a Korean family were killed in their home - Young Mi Yoon, 36; her daughters Grace, 15 months, and Rachel, 2 months; and her mother Suk Im Kim, 60. Kim was visiting from South Korea to help her daughter move across town and adjust to the arrival of her second child. Marine generals initially defended the choice to send the Hornet to Miramar. Since the crash, a lingering question has been why the pilot didn't attempt a landing at Coronado over open water. The tapes indicate that the ailing jet was closer to Coronado when the pilot reported a possible problem with the second engine. Miramar is ringed by freeways and bordered on its western end by residential areas that include a high school. Miramar dates to 1917, when the site was used to train troops headed to World War I. As late as the 1950s, it was still miles beyond San Diego's urban fringe, but homes have since been built right up to the edge of the base, where the Navy established its "Top Gun" fighter training school in 1969.

yes, there is a substantial difference in the real C-5, but mostly in guidance. I don't think there is any difference in the warhead.

Congratulations and best of luck!! Winning a full ride scholarship is quite an acomplishment!

that appears to be absolutely what happened here. He was talking to his squadron CO and Ops officer at Miramar who wanted to bring him home for maintenance rather than have him park it someplace else. And in coaching him over the radio (standard practice by the way) they failed to open the relevant checklists (NOT standard practice!!), and led this young student pilot down the primrose path to disaster. As in almost every accident that I've read of, its a chain of events each of which by itself would not have caused the accident and any one of which could have prevented it had that chain been broken. Such was the case here. In each part of the sequence of events, the opportunity to prevent the accident was there, but in each part they all continued and contributed to the eventual disaster. My take on this is based on my being an NFO, a squadron maintenance officer working under the same Naval Aviation Maintenance Program this squadron did, having been an NFO instructor at a RAG at Miramar, having flown in the same airspace, in the same training environment both as a student as an instructor and then as an Evaluator (Stan Eval to our Air Force brothers) and having also been in a twin engined with one fan not fanning, in the same airspace. (We went to San Clemente that day.) When I was the Maintenance Officer in a squadron, I had at one point maintenance dets spread out across the Western Pacific on four different islands retrieving broken planes that had been safely landed at divert fields rather than pressed on to home plate. When I was at Miramar in the RAG - we had planes diverted to North Island, San Clemente and even El Centro that had problems in flight. The closest piece of concrete was where anyone went in an emergency (and E-2's certainly had their share of emergencies). It is completely inexplicable that two perfectly good airfields were passed up for this guy to press on - at the specific direction of his squadron CO over the radio. He again passed up the chance to avoid an accident when he did his loop out over the Pacific. Listening to the controller audio (before I looked at the chart with his track on it) I heard the controller give him a right vector for a final straight in - and the pilot replied that he was in a left turn. You can hear the controllers surprise and I was too - no reason for that left turn. That left turn caused him to loose his fuel pressure and lost him the time and distance that could have made the field for him. The stated reason was their misconception that a right turn would aggravate his fuel pressure problem - in fact it contributed to that and was probably a direct contributory factor in the disaster. and why in God's name would he LAUNCH from the ship a hundred miles out to sea and check in with an emergency almost immediately with only 20 minutes of fuel?!!!!!! the term is cluster ............

some more details in this report http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/200...c/?zIndex=61668 I am appalled at some of the stuff reported in here by the accident investigation board.

of that, I can attest! "I'm not convinced it's a rgeat idea separating Flyco and the bridge that much as if you have a comms or electrical failure during flying ops it's going to get a bit emotional." trust me on this one - if you have a comms or electrical failure during flight ops, its going to be very emotional regardless of whether Pri-Fly and the Bridge are physically connected!!!

I suspect splitting the bridge for navigation and the tower for air ops provides for the better visibility and control by each to some extent. And the mid location of the side elevator probably makes movement of aircraft a bit easier. Interesting design.

"Was Kim Il-Sung always threatening everyone? " absolutely. "Am I the only one who think that NK should be invaded ASAP?" what? invade a country that hasn't attacked us? (sarcasm alert.............) "And I bet 3/4th of the army would desert as soon as the first bombs hits the ground. I seriously doubt that Kim has serious support from any one but himself." I will differ with you here. There is nothing to indicate that his military and the ruling junta that backs him up is not solidly behind him. You have to remember that if you are in NK, you are fed a constant barrage of foreign invasion threats from the cradle to the grave - and if you are part of the ruling clique or military, you get to eat. If the Dear Leader died of a heart attack today - the ruling face tomorrow would be different, but nothing else would change.

Pretty good animation of the ditching in the Hudson. This emphasizes just how fast that all went downhill (even with the bits of time compression)

SACRILEGE!!!! Nice job. don't have any suggestions for you. For myself, I like to keep the cockpits as close as realistic which isn't often the best for gameplay. You've got a nice combination there.

there is a big difference between the Open Skies flights which allow each "side" to fly announced recon flights over each other's various national airspaces and military faciliites, and an unannounced "Air Patrol" which penetrates an ADIZ. So these examples are not quite the same. And let me repeat something - this was about the 8th such event this winter which followed a pretty busy 2007-08 as well. This is getting pretty routine. The Canadian Forces CF-18's have been involved in quite a few of these missions responding on NORAD Air Soveriegnty Alert to unidentified aircraft and, in fact, during the F-15 grounding they covered Alaska until we could position sufficient F-22's to assume that mission. It is all routine and part of the on-going game in the Arctic. Am surprised at the amount and tone of the coverage. For us, its business as usual.

hear hear!! to add a bit on also - remember that its not so much the platform as the weapon. A cruise missile, whether launched by a tubroprop or a sophisticated jet, will be detected by its detonation on target. The Bear H is a very, very capable platform for that type of mission. Along those lines, people like lindr are building some very sophisticated conventional cruise missiles for the Bear H for conventional missions similar to ours in various interesting places around the world. the significance of the Bear and Blackjack flights along the coastlines of NATO countries and to overseas exercises is that they are, in fact, back and capable. Those of us who watch them for a living have taken note and routinely ensure air soveriegnty is patrolled and that we, as are they, are capable of whatever should be required. 9/11 should have taught all of us what the cost of not being ready for the unexpected is. It is sad that those lessons have apparently been forgotten.