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Ever fly EA-6's out of PSAB in Saudi?

The Buccs were a great aircraft. I flew my deepest strike during Desert Storm (aka Operation Granby) escorting Buccs and Tornados to bomb an airfield. Later I was stationed in Turkey with one of the guys I escorted. Many pints were exchanged I assure you.

Yep. 6 months circa 2005

I was there June-Sep 2002. Those EA-6's would orbit the field in their climb and just rattle the crap outta everything. They were a noisy beast.

Yes Sir, you are correct.

Turbojets baby none of those wimpy turbofans.

We alway s judged a good flyby by how many car alarms we set off.

Very cool jet for sure, Pete. If I recall, the Buccaneer had a rotary bomb bay as well. Loved the video. Even in my slow Viking, we could routinely kick Aegis Cruiser ass. Just keep below the radar horizon, pick them up outside missile range, drop to the deck, pop up at 60NM or so for target refinement then Harpoon release~50NM, way before they got any radar paint on us. Anyway, great video of a VERY COOL jet!.

There's an ANG base adjacent to the Fresno, CA airport. One Sunday I was getting home from a trip, and F16's were doing touch & goes. As I walked to my parked truck, each aircraft takeoff was setting off at least 20 car alarms in the lot

I suspect a bunch of people were needing jump starts, the next few days, and/or thinking they had bad batteries.

I think they did have the rotary bomb bays..

That form of attack works well as the RN found out to their cost during the Falklands War..We were just plain lucky that the Junta made their move before their air force had a decent inventory of Exocets or the planes to equipped to fire them.

Was reading an interesting account the other day speculating whether the Chileans allowed Nimrods and/or Canberra PR9's to operate from Chilean airfields. We gave them a couple PR9's at the end of the war for buttons so I tend to think we were saying "Thank You" for something tangible.

I know we did supply them with a powerful ground based radar and trained them how to operate it, and in return, they provided virtually real time info on raids departing from the Argentina's southern airfields...maybe in a few more years, the rest of the story will come out...

Pete, that form of attack is EASILY countered with a conventional Aircraft Carrier and AIRBORNE early Warning like the E-2C Hawkeye. Then you can extend coverage out to almost 1000 miles and those Buccaneers would not have gotten close. During the Falklands (as you probably know) you guys had SAS/SBS dudes on the beach transmitting Indications and Warnings.

Jeez, THAT's what it was! I left my truck in longterm parking a month ago at KSJT and when I came back after only 4 days away the battery was dead. Yesterday two pairs of F15's from Goodfellow flew low over my house a couple times. They were apparently doing T&G's on Rwy 18 (about 2 miles from my house, and I'm well east of the usual glidepath, but when you're flying an Eagle, I guess your glidepath is what you want it to be!!) and the neighbor's car alarm went off... turns out they've been doing training every Sunday for the past 6 weeks or so.

Which might explain my dead battery last month.

So true..

Chuck Yeager proved that to another jock one day.. Both took off and Yeager waxed him good.. They switched planes and took off again, only to have Yeager wax him again..

I think the guy was at first pizzed...

Just a few from my lens...





Houston we have a problem..









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[img]http://i809.photobucket.com/albums/zz14/Arch48/IMG_2983_zpsa53o2quz.jpg[/img]

Growing up around Air Force bases wasn't a bad child hood, that's for sure...

when I was in about the 2nd grade we lived on a base that was phasing out B 36s.... at that age, watching one take off, almost resembled watching a seagull take off on a pier...

those were big SOBs...

Thanks for those, Flem. Thuds and Phantoms....I still have it for the Darts.
My last look (and feel) at the Phantom was up at Anchorage in the early 1980s, I was working on the railroad and had a house on the point north of the railroad above the docks. Great, epic views of Mount Spurr, McKinley and the Inlet.
One evening, there was some kind of cycle blitz at the base. The sky was literally filled with Phantoms roaring off into the sunset, with the burners glowing along with the sun. Being a military kid and not realizing the passage of time, I enjoyed it, took eye movies, but didn't bother getting out the Nikon and the big glass.
The best pass was a four-ship, the very last. I presume they took off as pairs and then joined up for a fly-by, but it was a perfect finger four with zero separation, with all eight burning.
As they began their turn to the north, they crossed the sun line right on the shoulder of Mount Spurr. What a goodbye.

Quite correct, however the Task Force did not have an organic AEW capability. At some point a number of Sea Kings were modified for that role, but I don't think they came into service until after the war.

We did have Nimrod MR2, but given the distances from Ascension Islands, and the area the Task Force was spread over, the coverage was patchy..That was one of the reasons why we approached the Chileans about basing them somewhere a lot closer..

Regardless the the MR2 was not a dedicated AEW platform, so I am doubtful as to how effective they would have been in that role.




Yeah, at the time some of that became public when that Sea King had to ditch on a beach in Chile, and since then there's been lots of other rumours/speculation about exact nature of their missions.

Pardon my ignorance, but I wasn't aware that any but Navy jets used tailhooks... care to comment further?

Doc originally all Phantoms were built for the Squid AF.The T-hook was of course a key air frame component for carrier ops and was still in play as more F-4's went to land based USAF squadrons in Thailand and S. Vietnam.It was a great emergency tool for brake or parachute issues,hung ordinance, hydraulic and possible gear malfunctions..

Out of frame was a capture barrier which could also be deployed should the wire attempt fail. Wasn't an everyday occurrence of course but was used more than one would think as the AF variants were weak in the knees compared to their Navy cousins.

In theory an AF bird could land on a carrier..but certainly not practical for a host of reasons!

Even today the F-15 and 16 have hooks suitable for field arrestment but they are not designed to stand up to the short (or repeated) payout of a carrier landing. They're up under panels so you can't see them normally.

When you have controllability issues, or the potential of, a field arrestment is the norm even for the Navy. If we lost our flight hydraulic system we had no nose wheel steering (or speed brakes or anti-skid or flapper pop-up) so a trap was the norm.