Bad To The Boneyard

I know this has been covered here before, but this is a pretty cool video I just had to post.  Could be a bit sad, but still cool...

"Commonly referred to as the “Boneyard,” the 309th Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Group at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Ariz., contains about 5,000 retired military aircraft throughout 2,600 acres. Crews at the Boneyard preserve aircraft for possible future use, pull aircraft parts to supply to the field, and perform depot-level maintenance and aircraft regeneration in support of Air Force operations. (U.S. Air Force video/Andrew Arthur Breese)"

Awesome time lapse HD video of the Boneyard in Tucson.

Tail tales.  At least these have another life in them, although as target drones vice fighters. 

If it's not in a museum or on a stick- all the Tomcats are here.

As are the Vikings- possibly awaiting their transformation into Tanker CODs- Link

If the Vipers aren't there yet, they will be soon (assuming the Lightning II ever makes it through development.)

Even the Blues go there.  The Hornets they fly are the oldest in the Fleet so when
they're done with them, nobody else will take 'em except AMARG.

If you haven't been, do what you can to visit.  It can be sort of eerie, sad, but cool at the same time.  Lots of history there.  The Pima Air and Space Museum is nearby and is another chance to see history through 150 aircraft in slightly better condition than the ones across the street, including BUNO 160604- a bird I flew in Japan.  I flew my last flight to Davis-Monthan to drop off Dragonfire 704.  It was a strange day.  The gent that picked us up from the ramp drove us around the boneyard to show us where our bird would join the other Vikings.  He was polite, but I had the feeling that he was polite like a mortician- nice is part of the job, but one that can be a bit morbid to say the least.  Nevertheless, I'd like to go back and find it again someday.

Note:  The video above was part of a larger documentary on "Today's Air Force."

The Friday Flyby - 11 April

Sorry, no Flyby today.

I'm nursing a bad sunburn, too many hours on the go and too few hours in the rack.

I'll make it up to you when I get back to Little Rhody.

I see that Tuna has a couple of irons in the fire, perhaps he'll get something up.

Until then...

As Lex liked to say...

Talk amongst yourselves...



VFA-2 CAG Bird (100) and 104 getting ready to launch.
This is The WSO's squadron back when they were on the Lincoln.
The Bullets are now assigned to CAG-2 on the Reagan.

And now for something complete different!

That's a famous picture of Betty Grable.  It's quite a bit before my time, but I understand the popularity of the photo.  It shows a nice view of Ms. Grable's legs, and another fine asset she has.  There are plenty of examples of that type of shot on the interwebs, but Sarge always keeps this a family friendly place and I want to maintain that so I'll just give a couple more that keep it semi-classy around here, but will still help make my point.

I like these retro posters and pin-ups.  Again, before my time, but this one shows another rear-aspect viewpoint.  

The caption is already in the photo! 

As does this one- merging the old look with a more updated one, yet still retro.  I can't say I only like the view from the back, but for the purposes of today's post, I'll stick with that theme and get back on track to the standard fare around here.

We all love airplanes here at Sarge's place.  And taking nothing away from some propeller driven aircraft, some jets have a distinct advantage in that they look really good from behind, with their cans lit up.

Might have been retouched to emphasize the more colorful aspects of this one, but it's still great looking.

Tomcat at Mil on Cat 3

Another nice retouched photo, or possibly a painting.  I can't tell.

VF-154 bird I think.  Probably off the Indy.

F-15 Strike Eagle, in burner with vapes.

Another F-14 shot.  I like the ones at sunset.

Not sure what this one is, but it sure looks hot.

Phantom Burner

The afterburner almost doubles the length.

I think the F-15E looks pretty badass, but even better flying away.

I tend to think of the Saab as a "Chick Car."  The Saab Draken?  Not so much. 

Three for the price of one!

Vipers in burner

No need to go all old school here- I present the F-22 in burner.

And as "new school" as you can get- the F-35 in burner.

That'll have to do it for today kids.  Tune in next time for another exciting episode of something completely (but not very) different!

Travelin' Man

So I'm at the airport, waiting for my flight. First to DC, then to Sandy Eggo. Aisle seat, then middle seat. I really must speak to my travel agent. I'm sure The WSO, my travel agent, got a good deal on the tickets. One must hope that was the case. So I will "suffer" in silence. She must buy the first round in order to assuage my ruffled feelings.

Trying to do a travelogue kind of thing today. We'll see how this goes. Really glad The Nuke got me the tablet for Christmas.

My kids spoil me.

The flight from Providence to Washington-Dulles was uneventful. Aisle seat notwithstanding, I wouldn't have been able to see much had I had a window seat, as the aircraft was a Bombardier Q400 and my row was right next to the engine nacelles. I could have looked down I suppose, but it was 10-10ths cloud nearly all the way south.

I know what clouds look like from the top. (From the bottom as well, for that matter.)

Upon arrival in DC, ten minutes late, I discovered I had to drag my tired butt from gate A1 to gate C23, not a short distance.

Originally I was supposed to have had around 53 minutes between flights. Now, ten minutes behind schedule, I had to hustle at a non-relaxed pace. A little voice in my head kept saying, "Don't worry, they'll wait for you." Another voice was telling me that this would be the day I arrive at the gate to see the aircraft being pushed back.

So I kept moving with alacrity. Finally arriving at gate C23 fifteen minutes prior to scheduled departure. To be greeted by the gate agent with "So where are you coming from?"

Thinking that this was a rather odd time to be making small talk, I was a bit nonplussed. I answered, "I've just jogged here from gate A1. And Providence. Though I actually flew down from Providence. I only jogged here from the gate."

The gate agent grinned and said, "We're still waiting for nine other passengers from that Providence flight."

So I could have taken my time.

Boarding the aircraft I took up position in that middle seat, preparing myself for a five hour flight scrunched between two other members of my species. For the moment I was alone. Finally another guy showed up, the window seat guy, who informed me that he was the last one. If I wanted I could jump out to the aisle seat, were I so inclined.

As the row in front of us was empty, and he DID say he was the last guy, I moved up a row to capture a window seat.

Okay, window seat guy in my row was NOT the last passenger to board. But there were only a few more. A very nice Asian lady and her grandson showed up to sit in "my" row (the row in which I had usurped the window seat). I asked her if she had the window seat, she said, "No".

So here I am, on the flight to Sandy Eggo, avec window seat, contemplating another three hours in the air.

Oh yeah, one more thing. The airline is providing a complimentary movie.

The earphones which are supposed to be in the seat back are conspicuous by their absence.
What cruel trick is this?

And it's actually a movie I have not seen yet and would like to see.

Oh well, I'll make up my own dialog this time and compare mine with Hollywood's at a later date.

Oh oh, the grandson of the nice Asian lady is starting to fidget, I sense a disturbance in the Force.

More to come...

Later that same day...

So I made it to San Diego. The little guy sitting next to me was awesome, Well-behaved the whole flight. The one time he started to get restless lasted for like two seconds.

Now The WSO and I are preparing ourselves for a night at Shakespeare's. More to come!

Much later, that same day...

Shakespeare's was awesome.

Deserves a post all it's own it does.

Which will happen.

Soon.

But not now. For now it's to bed. For 0500 comes around early. Real early.

Until tomorrow...

Civil(ian) Wars

An Australian (RAAF) F-111 that only appears to be zorching along just fine.

If you follow Sarge regularly, you've probably read some of my forays into pithy politically charged part-time blogging.  It's pretty obvious what I used to do, but it's a little less clear how I spend my time now.  I've actually made no secret of it, in fact in my first guest-post I stated it up front- I'm a Dept. of the Navy employee now, a Mine Warfare Analyst.

Aviation related posts tend to be the norm around here though, and stuff about mines and mine sweeping can be a bit dry.  That job isn't nearly as exciting as my first career, but I know it's important, it's good work if you can get it, and most days I'm excited to go to work and usually in a good mood when I get home.  This didn't happen today.

Some days it like this- a little mistake that can be easily fixed- just push the plane back, straighten it out, and get it back to work.  Everybody makes mistakes, no big deal.

Everybody pitches in to fix it, help a co-worker out, make it all better.  That's what a team does.  This isn't what happened today either.

However, on other days, far less often of course, it might feel like this:

B-29 after shedding a prop- that's gonna leave a mark!

Much bigger mistake- the prop departs and goes through the fuselage, nearly decapitating one of the crewmen, who walks away unscathed.  No, nobody even almost gets hurt in my civil service world, outside of a paper-cut, or burning their tongue on hot coffee, but mistakes at work do happen that can take some effort to correct or eventually forget.  Nope, this didn't happen today at work either.

The caption on the intro photo was intentionally vague.  It looks like a $hi# hawt low transition, but it's not. The story behind it is that the nugget pilot had a failure that prevented the gear from coming down.  So he was practicing his approach- notice the flaps and slats are down, and the horizontal stab and canards deflected, before coming around again with his tailhook down making a successful landing.

This is sort of what happened today- everything is going fine, but then, just as the day is finishing up, a big problem happens.

Somebody else's mistake can just ruin a good day.

It was more like this- One guy is sitting fat dumb and happy in his plane when the other guy comes up and knocks him for a loop.

We have a mix of civilian and military at work, most of the civilians are retired military so we all know how the command operates, how the Navy operates, and what it takes to get the job done.  Most of us are willing to do that too, whatever it takes to get the job done.  Sometimes the people hired though, aren't working at the same level as they were used to in the service.  In today's instance, I'm working with a very senior retired guy, who needs to operate at the technical level his job requires, but he wants to be the guy two levels above that.  I'm not sure why a senior guy would want a more-junior position, nor why the Navy would hire such a senior guy to fill that position, but that's not for me to understand.  His job is to give me all the technical information so I can complete the paperwork and submit it for approval and funding.  I've been holding the paperwork, checking with him every couple of days to see how he's coming along.  The last contact was him saying that there's no problem, "Chief Jones has that info."

Meanwhile, I'm at the gym and his boss sends an email to God and country (including my boss), asking why this is taking so long.  He promptly responds that it's all my fault, he gave me what I needed and he has no idea why I'm sitting on it.  Then he leaves for the day.

This is a better depiction of what happened-

He shoves me to the side of the runway and takes off like he's scot-free.  

Now I'm pretty ticked off.  I call down to his office to find out what the hell is going on.  Chief Jones answers and says he was told that I'd be calling to get the info for the paperwork.   The light went on- when I was told that there was no problem and that Chief Jones had the info, he expected me to go find Jones and get the info myself- acting like the O-6 he used to be, not the mid-level civil servant that he is, a job that requires him to learn the technical stuff, and actually speaking to his own subordinate to get the info I need.  Finding Jones to get the technical info is way out of my lane, crossing departmental lines, tasking one of his guys to help me, etc.  Now, a department head thinks I'm a lazy sack, and my boss thinks the same.  I went and spoke to my boss to explain how it really happened and he's completely on my side, but the damage is done.  He says it's not worth flaming the guy via email, not that I would have, and that I don't need to worry about what the other department head thinks...

but I do.  

I don't like getting walked all over.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do tomorrow.  I know what the guy deserves, but I'll probably take some stupid high road, sucking it up, and counting down the days until vacation.  70 days and counting.

Heading to Kauai with the family.  I'd love to take a Pan-Am Clipper, but I'll be flying the friendly skies

 So I've got that to look forward to, and I might run into our humble host at Shakespeare's tomorrow so it should be a much better day.

Update:  Here's the story on the F-111 landing:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIyYK9oz9Go.  The picture isn't a practice approach as I first thought.  The jet has already taken the wire which can be seen if you look close.

Frühling ist Entsprungen*

Amidst the detritus and debris of a long winter,
the daffodils are blooming!

While I do consider myself to be a "manly man", though not to this extent...

I do have a girlie sensitive side.

Hard to believe that the crusty old Sarge would admit that. But there it is. I'm kind of disappointed that I'll miss all of the daffodils blossoming while I'm out in Sandy Eggo.

That's what I thought you said Gunny.

As for me?

I am Sandy Eggo bound.

For Strength!

Ladies and gentlemen, my next post will be from the West Coast. See you there.

I have a plane to catch!

*Spring has sprung

Heading West

Preparations are underway for the big adventure in Sandy Eggo this week.

Maps are being compiled and studied in detail.

The troops are moving to their jump off points.

The logistics folks are preparing the supply train.

The cavalry are charging about the landscape wearing out their horses, trying the patience of the locals and causing good men everywhere to hide their daughters.

Not to mention putting a significant dent in the local supply of eau de vie. And anything else potable with a kick!

The artillerymen are preparing their limbers, guns and horses in their usual, no nonsense, workmanlike fashion. 

And the infantry are marching through the mud, mocking the horsemen, swearing at the artillery limbers forcing them into the ditches beside the roads and generally bitching about anything and everything.

Why?

They're infantry.

All await the command of...

Uh, that would be me.

In reality all I have to do is get to the airport on time Tuesday to make my flight.

All that other stuff?

It's what I like to call "artistic license."