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Post by yachtsmanwilly on Oct 21, 2023 13:56:48 GMT -5
"The Cool City..."
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Post by Avenger on Oct 21, 2023 14:17:12 GMT -5
I’m currently flying with a guy that’s an old tomcat driver. He was telling me a story about his scariest experience launching and landing on the carrier at night in heavy seas in the Australian bite. Thank God we have people willing to go through that to provide the freedoms we enjoy each and every day! I can't imagine what it's like to fly one of those things. Just sitting in it and walking around it gives the impression of unlimited power. Its a HUGE aircraft for a fighter. But sitting in the cockpit you can't see the plane unless you turn all the way around and look back at that tennis court that's following you around. Standing behind it, it's all skinny blades and these two giant sewer pipes of engine. Watch the opening scenes of Final Countdown or Top Gun and it just skims the surface of what it must be like to strap that beast on and get catapulted off the deck of an aircraft carrier in full afterburner. And then you have to drive it like running a Bridgeport Mill to tenths tolerances to put it back where it came from. And where it came from is bobbing up and down tens of feet at a gulp, moving forward, a little bit relative to you. Oh, and it's kinda yawing around too... In the dark. My recollection may be faulty, but I'm pretty sure Dad said they dropped it from forty feet a few times. If you do the math it makes sense. If the deck is pitching 10-15 feet, and the plane comes in high and chops the throttles, that collision between a rising deck and sinking aircraft would be about like a four story fall. I take nothing from NASCAR and NHRA guys, but naval aviators are cut from a different cloth. Too bad I inherited my mother's eyesight. Dad had 20/15 vision.
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Post by rsmith on Nov 4, 2023 23:45:10 GMT -5
pabook.libraries.psu.edu/literary-cultural-heritage-map-pa/feature-articles/spinning-out-heroes-johnsville-centrifugeOne of our customers was Johnsville NAS we put in 2 incinerators there a monkey burner and a confidential waste incinerator. I had to go through all kinds of background checks to get the clearance to get in there. They used the centrifuge to train all the initial astronauts. When I was there they were trying to figure out why pilots were blacking out in the newer fighters. I got to know everyone there. They had a full motion F14 simulator there and were testing HUD displays for instrument approaches and enroute navigation. One of the guys knew I was a pilot and offered me a hop in the sim. It was pretty cool flying HOTAS hands on throttle and stick. Pretty much everything you need is on the throttle or stick. It’s impressive but not what you see in Top Gun. I rolled it into a 60* turn and pulled back the stick to maintain altitude. The speed bled off pretty quick and wasn’t long before the stick shaker started. Indicating pre stall.
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Post by rsmith on Nov 7, 2023 6:23:03 GMT -5
I’ve never flown anything like that IRL but I guess it had to be close in the end an airplane is just an airplane. When I took my private check ride the examiner told me you only learn to fly once the rest is just getting used to different airplanes. Funny how the F14 was quickly replaced by the Hornet F18.
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Post by Avenger on Nov 7, 2023 11:05:42 GMT -5
I’ve never flown anything like that IRL but I guess it had to be close in the end an airplane is just an airplane. When I took my private check ride the examiner told me you only learn to fly once the rest is just getting used to different airplanes. Funny how the F14 was quickly replaced by the Hornet F18. Politics and military-industrial complex lobbying. Most people in the Navy with actual experience in both aircraft would have bought the Tomcat. If govt and Mil-Spec was a little more relaxed, and I understand why they are reluctant to relax that, there were significant upgrades available to the F-14 that could have resolved many of the issues it was plagued with because its Mil-Spec originated in 1970. When did the F-18, a far less capable aircraft, get its authorization? In the Navy, they used a term "The Hornet Mafia" to describe the corporate/political cabal that pushed the F-18. Grumman was always the underdog in these cases. It also didn't help that LI voters elected Thomas Downey Jr., a liberal Democrat who focused more on SS benefits than the military. Whereas McDonnell had William Proxmire and his Golden Fleece award, Thomas Eagleton and Stuart Symington. Our senator at that time was Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Good f'ing luck. I'm happy to blame our voters, but I can't accept the Navy failing to do the right thing. We also lost the Staten Island homeport for the Iowa because of our useless POS politicians. Experienced Tomcat operators will tell you that it's an easy airplane to fly, but a very difficult airplane to fly well. Its variable geometry and multi-role design compromises, as well as its construction for carrier operation, make it a different animal. It also didn't help that its first two decades of service were using an engine compromise that wasn't corrected until the 1990s. Because (surprise!) inadequate funding. See above. It is highly capable in all of its roles as long as it had a skilled operator. In its last assignments it was leading squadrons of F-18s who were basically bomb carriers while the lone Tomcat was the target designator because of a TARPS pod, its superior radar and the back-seater. It just sucks that it never got to succeed on it's own merits
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Post by rsmith on Nov 7, 2023 20:38:24 GMT -5
Yeah it’s kinda weird like someone wanted the 14 to just go away. In a military where we’re still flying 50’s B52’s and 60’s 707’s for refuelers and intel aircraft to scrap a relatively new aircraft is strange.
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