Drifting........Navy style

Sailor son informs me

It takes roughly 400 gallons of water, converted into steam for each cat launch!

THD said:

Marin-you really missed your big chance while on the Connie. You should have talked into taking you up. You cannot believe what being launched from a carrier is like. I flew backseat F-4Js in the USMC out of Cherry Point, NC. We had an annual rotation cruise with the Fleet, usually on the USS Enterprise. An F-4J has a takeoff weight of anywhere from about 52,000 to 58,000 lbs depending on armor and fuel load. Our aircraft had GE J79-10 engines at about 18,500 lbs thrust each, about 26,000 lbs each in full afterburner. Liftoff speed for the F-4J is approximately 190 knots, although coming off the front of the carrier, you are usually at about 185. The catapault accelerates a 57,000 lb aircraft from 0 to over 180 knots over about 600 feet and 3.3 seconds. It is a kick in the ass that you never forget. It is really cool to go below decks and see the cat-they are steam powered, one massive piston. I don't know how big, but imagine the mass needed to get that aircraft moving that fast that quickly. It is impressive.

True Catapault Story-around 1971, the USMC and the USAF had an exchange program where the AF would send a squadron of F-4s in to Cherry Point to become carrier qualified. We had an auxiliary airfield at Cherry Point, Bogue Field, that had a cat and arresting gear. The AF had to fly our aircraft as the AF F-4s had a weaker undercarriage than the Navy/Marine ones. The AF pilots were used to long, slow, shallow glide paths. Navy pilots bring the aircraft in and from about 75 feet or so just slam the plane to the deck, that's how you catch the arresting gear. Well, when we flew final carrier quals, we flew out to the old FDR, a WWII carrier. The AF guys could not believe how small an 800 foot ship looks from 5,000 feet! But we get everybody landed and were scheduled for launch the next morning. The first thing you get told on the cat is "Head back against the headrest, heels back against the base of the seat, and hang on to something". Well the old Martin-Baker-5 ejection seats we had had three means of ejecting, a face curtain, a lever on the right almost at the floor, and a big "D" ring between your knees. Well, the first AF pilot that launched, his backseat guy held on the the D Ring. With that accerlation his hands pulled up and he ejected himself right over the bow of the FDR! We always had two choppers in the air during operations, so they get to him pretty quickly. And fortunately for him, unhurt. A lot of ejections cause back and neck compression injuries. At the end the AF stay, at a dinner in the O Club, our CO gave him a "Premature Ejaculation" Award!

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HiDHo said:

Crust Chief, you know your old when you met a retired chief that did his 20 after you retired. But pay backs are sweet after drawing $54 a month as E-1.

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$54 bucks in 61? You were living large! I thought I was rich getting $205 with free room and board in 72.

Here's a photo I took of the Intrepid in 1971 just before the flight deck went under water. we commented at the time that we were unrepping with an extremely large sub
John
MS390

John,

What ship were you on? I was on USS Sacramento AOE-1, we unrepped most everything that floated and was painted grey.

The difference between a Sea Story and a Fairy Tale,,

The Fairy take begins , "Once Upon a Time"

The Sea Story begins , Now this is No SH**.

Best 60's sea story from Approach was of a night cat shot where the controls were hooked up backwards.

Mfg error in using same sized fitting in hyd setup.

The Naval Aviator figured it out (at 80 ft) and was able to get back aboard.

Thats why the Navy and Marines train Aviators , not pilots like the Army and Air Force..

Great memories guys, It's good to see so many on the site.
I got my start as Pipefitter, civilan employee working for DOD at Philadelphia Naval shipyard in the early 80's. Under Ronald Regan the Navy went to a 600 ship fleet which created a ton of work at ship yards nationwide. I had the opportunity to work on many FF's DDG's. I remember doing the tank level indicators on the Wisconsin. The main work load was the SLEP program, Serviice life extension program for most of the convential steam carriers. The refit was supposed to give the carriiers an additional 15 years of service life. I think the first two carriers the yard worked on were were the Forresthall and Saratoga followed by America, Independence, Connie. A lot of fond memories. The two things that impressed me were seeing the Wisconsin in dry dock, the majority of the ship sits below the water line, very impressive. The second was being amazed that these vessels would float .The amont of pipe, steal, crome molly, copper nickel, stainless on a carrier was amazing. I spent two years fitting pipe in the bildge of engine room three on the independece. Every day, six days a week and never got out of the bilge.

johnma said:

Here's a photo I took of the Intrepid in 1971 just before the flight deck went under water. we commented at the time that we were unrepping with an extremely large sub
John
MS390

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I was flying Sea King helicopters off Intrepid in that time frame. Might not be the same storm, but the ship was supporting a cold weather NATO operation called Snowy Beach off the coast of Maine. A hurricane came up the coast and the ship had to run ahead of the storm because the Captain was afraid to turn the old rust bucket. All but a couple S-2's were tied down on the hangar deck. Green water over the bow, tie yourself in your rack stuff. One of the S-2's got tore all to hell. A day into the run south, an escort destroyer called that they had a crew member who was badly injured in the heavy weather and they had to get him to the carrier's sick bay. So they dragged one of our H3's up to the flight deck. I started the engines and threw all the switches for the hydraulic blade spread. The system was struggling, so the deck crew who had left the tiedowns on the blade tips helped drag and stabilize them into the locked position. We had wind gust in the 65 knot range on the airspeed indicator and the ship was barely making way. Got it cranked up without incident, and that old pig fairly leaped off the deck with only a tiny bit of collective pitch. Ended up hoisting the injured sailor in a litter from the destroyer (no helicopter deck), which was pitching and heaving wildly. Wouldn't have attempted a landing even if they had a landing area. Got back to the carrier and except for the damaged S-2s we had the whole place to ourselves. Normal landing spot was forward on the angle deck. Air Boss said put it wherever you like, Lieutenant. We picked a spot exactly mid-ships to minimize pitching motion, but the heave was still an interesting synchronization exercise. All's well that ended well.

Years later I was an engineering test pilot out of the Naval Air Test Center at Patuxent River and aboard the Connie doing an envelope recertification for the H-3 landing envelope. There had been a number of accidents over the years resulting from loss of tail rotor control power in adverse winds. So we had the carrier out looking for the nastiest weather they could find...winds and waves. Never got close to what we saw on Intrepid ten years earlier, but still plenty scary as we were focused on night ops. The landing spot at the very end of the bow was a nightmare as it was moving 50-60 feet vertically at a high rate. The trick was to get in synch with the ship and slam the aircraft onto the deck right at the end of the downward motion. Time it wrong and the ship came up and slammed the snot out of the landing gear. After nearly punching a strut up through the sponson, we eliminated that spot for night landings. Of course the other problem was on a black murky night there was zero visual reference for the pilot other than out the side windows or the chin windows.

Worked off of eleven carriers from the 70s through the early 80's.

HiDHo said:

Crust Chief, you know your old when you met a retired chief that did his 20 after you retired.

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Did exactly that back in the spring. What a humbling experience.

Marty..................

Bob Cofer said:

John,

What ship were you on? I was on USS Sacramento AOE-1, we unrepped most everything that floated and was painted grey.

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Bob
I was on the Santa Barbara AE28. I was a plankowner and served on her from 70 to 72.
John

My brother was on the flight deck of the Enterprise in January of 69 when the missile launched on the flight deck and started the fire. He was blown off the deck and landed 70 feet down in the water along with several other guys. He was in the water for 18 hours until they found him and fished them out. I was in boot camp at the time. Me and another guy in our boot company (744) had brother missing in that fire. They had us sit in the chaplains office for two days waiting for news. They found my brother alive and his brothers body..
John

semi-planing said:

Which squadron?

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HU-2 out of Lakehurst, New Jersey.

Codger2 said:

HU-2 out of Lakehurst, New Jersey.

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A fellow Fleet Angel...early 70's. Two long cruise deployments on USS America...Med and Gulf of Tonkin, short cruises on Forrestal, Intrepid and Saratoga. There's an HU-2/HC-2/HC-7 mailing list, by the way.

($54 bucks in 61? You were living large! I thought I was rich getting $205 with free room and board in 72)


Seem to remember the twice monthly payday of about $75 back in 68

LWW said:

($54 bucks in 61? You were living large! I thought I was rich getting $205 with free room and board in 72)


Seem to remember the twice monthly payday of about $75 back in 68

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$150 a month in 68? You musta been E-4 over 4 or better. As an E-3 under 2 I thought I was getting $96 bucks a month and about $15 tax free and $65 a month combat pay doubled my income and sent $150 a month home to help out the rest of the family. By the end of 68 I'd made E-4 and field promoted to E-5 and doubled it again! Had to obligate for another year to get E-5 and selected P.I. for Super High Intensity Training, which incidentally, was the acronym name of that river in Olongapo....

Hey Sailor......buy me drink?

Well, I was wondering how long this thread would go before some one mentioned Olongopo. Subic Bay was our homeport away from stateside. USS Taluga AO-62, four westpac cruises on board that old WW2 tanker, as an MM2. 67-71.
No air cond. in berthing space , port and stbd watch rotations, bilge rats berthed directly above boiler room and engine room. Oh, what a life.
Unrepping day and night, manning the cargo deck for cargo and personnel transfers, when not on watch. Oh joy!
The best part was when our tanks were empty and the cargo deck bare, we would head for Subic to replenish, which would give us 48-72 hrs in port, before the cycle would begin again.
Now I'm gonna have to dig out some of the pics I took of the USS Enterprise along side taking everything we had that was fuel ( black, diesel, avgas).
Or when the USS New Jersey rolled up from behind, gives me gooseys.

Bill

P.S.
Ice cold San Miguel and monkey meat on a stick. ( I really think it was dog).
Oops, is that not PC?

Station Dito 76-78, hard not to get in trouble back then.

Top speed of the Enterprise was 33.8 knots. Limited by shaft torque. I stood Throttleman watch many a night shift in the mid 90's. The 60 mph was a myth. I was able to remove the brass plate on the throttles to polish and found where the whole watch team in the 80's had signed when she ran aground in California. I was on it stationed in Norfolk. Many a story to be told by sailors! We were a wild bunch of kids! The #1 engine room was the furthest forward and at full power the shaft would twist 1.5 times from front to back at those speeds. Shame she couldn't have been turned into a museum. We spend fortunes on useless endeavors everywhere in the world but here at home...

We operated with the New Jersey, Marines loved gun fire support from the BB, a salvo of six 16" projectiles would make targeted vc bunker complex turn into a huge hole in the ground. CG-32 had the missiles and range to protect the BB from mig suicide missions which intelligence had predicted. We also had fun with the migs on PIRAZ station, they did not like us maintaining station 40 miles off Hanoi.
2/67-9/67 F.B. Royal DD872
12/68 -7/69 W.H. Standley CG 32
1/71-7/71 " "
Bill

Ships mugs

Couple of mine that I could get to fairly quickly. CVN-69 USS Dwight D. Eisenhower was with VAQ-138 med cruise. A lot of stuff going on during this time78-79 didn't get into port much. Got my first dear John on this one.
LHA-5 USS Peleliu, ships company actually visited the Island of Peleliu and delivered a monument to place from WW2 great time.
I was ships company on the CVN-72 Abraham Lincoln and we evacuated the P.I. In 91, From both Clark and Subic when Mt. Pinitubau erupted, what a mess!
Makes me enjoy the cocktails on the stern of my own that much better.

Opps forget to add these.

HiDHo said:

We operated with the New Jersey, Marines loved gun fire support from the BB, a salvo of six 16" projectiles would make targeted vc bunker complex turn into a huge hole in the ground. CG-32 had the missiles and range to protect the BB from mig suicide missions which intelligence had predicted. We also had fun with the migs on PIRAZ station, they did not like us maintaining station 40 miles off Hanoi.
2/67-9/67 F.B. Royal DD872
12/68 -7/69 W.H. Standley CG 32
1/71-7/71 " "
Bill

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heard the same about the New Jersey from a good friend who was a FAC for her sometimes.....want a hilltop gone? Call the Jersey
.

Originally Posted by LWW View Post

($54 bucks in 61? You were living large! I thought I was rich getting $205 with free room and board in 72)


(Seem to remember the twice monthly payday of about $75 back in 68)

Old age is hell. That could have be monthly. Started as E1 in June 68 ended June 72 E5. 2 1/2 years on USS Sylvania AFS 2 as a Storekeeper. Lots of manual labor and Med time.

PS I've until last year been able to keep an eye on my ship in the ghost fleet on the James River but sadly it's gone now.

Crusty Chief said:

LHA-5 USS Peleliu, ships company actually visited the Island of Peleliu and delivered a monument to place from WW2 great time.

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I and my video crew spent a week out on the Peleliu. It was a training run for the ship's crew in preparation for an upcomng long deployment; there were no aircraft or assault vehicles on board. We just steamed up and down the southern California coast for a week.

When we'd be off Pendleton the Marines would come out in LCACs and practice boarding and departing the ship's ramp. We had the run of the ship and it was impressive going down below and shooting the LCAC operations. We'd never seen one before.

We were there to shoot footage and background plates of Harriers comng in evey afternoon from a base in Arizona (I think) to practice landings and takeoffs.

The rest of the time we had nothing to do so we hung out on the bridge a lot. In contrast to the Constellation we'd filmed on some years earlier at least half the crew and officers on the bridge were women.

The ship's commander told us that the LHAs weren't the biggest or longest ships in the Navy but they were the tallest.