Air Force Jets, Navy Jets

F-15C of the 36th Fighter Wing, Bitburg AB, Germany

I've been to Bitburg a bunch of times when I was stationed in Germany. Like many of our old Cold War bases, it's been shut down. When I was in Germany operations were moved to neighboring Spangdahlem AB (where I've been as well), the housing area at Bitburg was transitioned to the 52nd Fighter Wing out of Spangdahlem. Wikipedia says it still belongs to "Spang", I don't know for sure.

At any rate, I ran across this excellent (though old) video of an F-15 launch. Shows the relationship between the pilot and crew chief pretty well I thought.

For the Navy portion of this post, I went looking for some footage of my son-in-law Big Time's old outfit, the Knighthawks of VFA-136. These guys were part of CVW-1 embarked on board the USS Enterprise, CVN-65. May her memory live forever!

F/a-18E Knighthawk, heading out to seek prey!

The video is from the Knighthawks' homecoming back in 2011. I know a lot of the guys you can see taxiing in, a lot of 'em were at Big Time and The WSO's wedding! Great bunch of aviators. Big Time is in the video.

This was Enterprise's penultimate deployment. At the time this video was taken, we were all back at the apartment in Virginia Beach awaiting the conquering hero's return.

I met him at the door. He smelled like jet. A good smell for some. Not sure if the ladies appreciated the scent. For me, it brought back a lot of memories. Military jets and their crews have their own, distinct (heh) aroma.

Enjoy!