"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn)
06/15/2018 at 09:15 • Filed to: None
10
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"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn)
06/15/2018 at 09:15 • Filed to: None | 10
| 27 |
(US Navy)
This is the flight deck of the USS Constellation (CVA-64) as the carrier made its way to Vietnam in 1967. Since the arrival of the multirole fighter, you no longer see a deck with such a wide variety of aircraft. From the bottom up, we’ve got a North American A-5 Vigilante, a Douglas A-4 Skyhawk, a Douglas RA-3B Skywarrior in black, a Grumman A-6 Intruder, what looks like a Sikorsky SH-3 Sea King, a gaggle of McDonnell (Douglas) F-4 Phantoms, a couple of A-3D Skywarriors in white, and a Douglas A-1D Skyraider tucked in up front amongst more Phantoms, Skyhawks and Intruders. It certainly simplifies matters for the Navy, but it’s just not the same seeing a deck crammed with just Super Hornets.
Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> ttyymmnn
06/15/2018 at 09:22 |
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Roundbadge
> ttyymmnn
06/15/2018 at 09:30 |
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I tried looking for the Skyraiders in the lead picture rather than the full size linked version. It hurt and now I need glasses.
Once I looked at the full size version, I noticed there’s 2 A-1Ds.
RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
> ttyymmnn
06/15/2018 at 09:51 |
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Not for nothing was the Skywarrior called “The whale”. That’s a big goomba on the flight deck right there.
Funny enough, it’s also an excellent nuclear deterrent airframe of exactly the kind that prize idiot Louis Johnson didn’t believe could exist, even though that wasn’t the correct argument for why we needed big carriers anyway...
AuthiCooper1300
> ttyymmnn
06/15/2018 at 09:58 |
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The Skyhawk and the Vigilante have always been favourites of mine, but that flat-black Skywarrior looks very businesslike indeed. Its lack of ejection seats, however...
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ttyymmnn
> Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
06/15/2018 at 10:07 |
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Negative Ghost Rider, the pattern is full.
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ttyymmnn
> Roundbadge
06/15/2018 at 10:08 |
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You’re right. I see the other one now.
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ttyymmnn
> RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
06/15/2018 at 10:09 |
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In an effort to save weight, the US Navy variant of the Skywarrior didn’t come with ejection seats, though the Air Force variant did. Crews joked that A3D meant “all three dead.”
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ttyymmnn
> AuthiCooper1300
06/15/2018 at 10:10 |
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A3D = all three dead
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RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
> ttyymmnn
06/15/2018 at 10:13 |
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Kind of baffling, really, when one considers that it was an over 30 ton aircraft when loaded. Deduction of one bomb would have provided for twice that many seats.
Hamtractor
> ttyymmnn
06/15/2018 at 10:15 |
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I’m headed to San Diego at the end of the month, both my wife and I were Navy, so every time we go to San Diego we visit the Midway. I’ll have to take a bunch of photos. Once it cools down a bit, I’m planning a return to trip to the Pima Air Museum too...
user314
> AuthiCooper1300
06/15/2018 at 10:18 |
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Not for nothing the crews referred to it as the “All 3 Dead”.
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AuthiCooper1300
> ttyymmnn
06/15/2018 at 10:22 |
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Ouch...
That Vigilante seems to have the rounded back of the RA-5C. I wonder if by 1967 there were any attack ones left.
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ttyymmnn
> Hamtractor
06/15/2018 at 10:28 |
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Fly Navy! I grew up in Norfolk, a prime place for an aviation and military history nerd like myself. I miss going to the beach and seeing all the air traffic around Oceana. I also remember hearing the sonic booms from the Tomcats back in the day.
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Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> ttyymmnn
06/15/2018 at 10:32 |
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Hamtractor
> ttyymmnn
06/15/2018 at 10:34 |
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With Luke AFB north of town, we get a ton of cool aircraft sightings, including F-35s, which are pretty cool to see, despite the fact that they remain a waste of money and technology, lol... The Luke Days airshow is a good one, but my heart is set on Reno this year or next... Gotta get me my warbird and racer fix!
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ttyymmnn
> RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
06/15/2018 at 10:39 |
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I hadn’t heard the Louis Johnson story, so I did some googling and found this . Fascinating stuff. Putting patently unqualified people in positions of national importance seems to echo today. I had a long talk with a USAF F-35 pilot an at air show last year, and we talked everything from military history to the future of military aviation. He said, “History doesn’t necessarily repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”
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ttyymmnn
> Hamtractor
06/15/2018 at 10:41 |
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What’s a Navy man doing in Arizona?
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RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
> ttyymmnn
06/15/2018 at 11:02 |
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On the other hand, it was “qualified” accepted wisdom at the time that the US would no longer need carriers for any purpose, and that the role of the Navy would devolve to nothing more than anti-submarine work and transport. Louis Johnson was merely antagonistically picking one side in a rather stupid argument. The answer of the Navy being “but we can field nukes too!” was equally misguided. Containment theory and worries about proxy wars were already on the table, but somehow nobody made the connection until Korea.
vicali
> ttyymmnn
06/15/2018 at 11:12 |
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oh boy, Flight of the Intruder was my nes jam..
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Hamtractor
> ttyymmnn
06/15/2018 at 11:12 |
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Moved out here from Denver because the girl I married lived here. Plus, San Diego is only a five hour drive from here, so I get to the ocean three or four times a year... Also, Denver filled up with hippies and vapebros after they legalized the Devil’s Lettuce, and I hate snow. The desert is awesome, I don’t mind the heat at all. If I was a bazillionaire, I’d live in San Diego, but for regular folks like us, the taxes and the cost of living are too high to live on a coast...
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ttyymmnn
> RamblinRover Luxury-Yacht
06/15/2018 at 11:17 |
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In following the debate over the future of the A-10, I don’t relish the job of those leaders who have to try and figure out what the war of the future will look like. It would be nice to have everything you need to fight any kind of war anywhere, but the budgetary realities make that impossible.
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ttyymmnn
> Hamtractor
06/15/2018 at 11:19 |
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My mom lived in Phoenix and then Green Valley. I even auditioned for the Phoenix Symphony about 20 years ago but didn’t get the gig. My biggest question about that area is, back when people were moving west, who said, “Let’s live here!” No doubt it was for the water, but still.
bmil128
> ttyymmnn
06/15/2018 at 11:37 |
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My dad was a supply officer on the JFK for pre-commissioning/sea trials and the first Med cruise in ‘68-‘69 with many of the same type squadrons. He often flew ashore ahead of the ship on their C-1 Trader “Caroline II” named after Caroline Kennedy. His roommate was an F-4 pilot and was going to give him a ride before his tour was done, but he day before an A-4 from the ship crashed and they lost the pilot, so my dad had second thoughts and backed out. Oh well...
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ttyymmnn
> bmil128
06/15/2018 at 11:38 |
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I’d give my left nut to go up in an F-4. But I can understand his concern.
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user314
> Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
06/15/2018 at 13:04 |
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ttyymmnn
> Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
06/15/2018 at 13:05 |
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The Navy didn’t carry out those tests just to see if they could do it, but to see if the 130 could be used for COD. It worked, but was just too much of a hassle.
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Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
> ttyymmnn
06/15/2018 at 13:37 |
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Cheaper and easier to refuel midair, I should think.
