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Looking for gouge? Ask your Stupid Questions about Naval Aviation here (Part 1)
- Thread starter Nose
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OLF or more aptly Naval Auxiliary Landing Field (NALF) Fentress from the air. Hard to see the carrier landing area unless you know what you're looking for, but here's some live video.
If you have Google Earth, so a search on Coupeville NOLF. I noticed that the Google Earth pic shows yellow X's on the runway. Any Whidbey EA6 guys care to comment on that?
The field isn't authorized for full stops except in case of a no kidding emergency. It's only 5400' long with E-28 gear at midfield. You'll either catch the gear or smoke the brakes. And have fun trying to get the jet light enough to fly back out. Plus, NUW is like 10mi away. With three good sets of gear and 8000' of runway. Why bother?
Here is an interesting link to NALF Fentress with info and pics. (scroll to the bottom)
http://www.airfields-freeman.com/VA/Airfields_VA_VirginiaBeach.htm#fentress
http://www.airfields-freeman.com/VA/Airfields_VA_VirginiaBeach.htm#fentress
If the entire airwing is on board, you can't fit everything on the hanger deck.
Coupeville NOLF
An interesting (at least to me) story about Coupeville NOLF. On my Private checkride, in a Piper Colt, Wes Lupien pulled power on me over the runway at Coupeville. Wx at the time was about 3500' with wind out of the west gusting to 20+ kts. I immediately started to set up for an approach to the south end of the field. "NO NO" said Wes. "You've only got one shot at this, land into the wind across all that concrete!" He took control and demonstrated a touch and go across the runway. Needless to say, there was no Navy traffic in the area that day.
Wes Lupien was a Naval Aviator (I'm not sure if he retired or resigned his commission.) and an all around nice guy. The airport at Oak Harbor is now named for Wes who passed away from Alzheimers disease. There is an interesting resolution from the Washington State Senate honoring Wes here.
An interesting (at least to me) story about Coupeville NOLF. On my Private checkride, in a Piper Colt, Wes Lupien pulled power on me over the runway at Coupeville. Wx at the time was about 3500' with wind out of the west gusting to 20+ kts. I immediately started to set up for an approach to the south end of the field. "NO NO" said Wes. "You've only got one shot at this, land into the wind across all that concrete!" He took control and demonstrated a touch and go across the runway. Needless to say, there was no Navy traffic in the area that day.
Wes Lupien was a Naval Aviator (I'm not sure if he retired or resigned his commission.) and an all around nice guy. The airport at Oak Harbor is now named for Wes who passed away from Alzheimers disease. There is an interesting resolution from the Washington State Senate honoring Wes here.
Piece of cake ...
... we ran the numbers and you can deck launch (the whole deck, not just the angle) an A6 w/ P8 engines w/@ #4500 of fuel, 30 KTS of wind and clean wings .... yeah, I know, we were just spinnin' our wheels after watching a STOOF deck launch .... But seriously, it's easy to get into OLF CPVL if you were on fire or something similar. Take the gear. They're just going to tow the bird back to NUW anyway ....
Another "interesting" (you know what the Chinese say about interesting) story about OLF CPVL .... we were taking ground fire around the pattern and took some hits in the LSO shacks (unoccupied -- I guess they thought the planes were fair game) -- until a combined op with Island County Sheriff, the FEDs, and the base Shore Patrol netted the miscreants. Good preparation for SE Asia. It seemed they didn't like the noise nor the participation of the NUW squadrons in the Vietnam War.
Wes Lupien was pretty much wasted from Alzheimer's when I returned to the Island after the Navy and some airline garden spots. I always thought OLF would make a GREAT county airport with a little County/state development and coordination with the Navy, but nothing's happened along that line in nearly 40 years. Having made many commuter flights into and out of Oak Harbor Air Park I can attest that it's an accident waiting to happen @ night or IFR.
And sometimes when they're NOT entering port, too ....
Besides ... sometimes the hangar deck is too full of other things ....
My first A-4 flight in VT-86 was a hurrivac from NPA to NSF to WPO. Had to wait in the hold short at NSF for a bunch of VMF-321 F-4's to arm and depart loaded with MK-82's. Took about 20 minutes with each section making it feel like the Scooter was going to slid off the end just due to noise.
Ouch....1978 was only a blink of an eye ago
Hangar is only for maintenance and it isn't easy or fast getting your aircraft out of there once they're "dropped" and wedged in there. Ship is loath to run the elevators and often takes lots of coordination between CAG maintenance and Ship to schedule moves and runs. Moving them in and out is a real art because they're packed like sardines and "crunches" are always a danger. You want your aircraft "on the roof" where they can fly. Even if flightdeck looks packed, there's plenty of aircraft below undergoing some type of maintenance action(s).
Hangar move onto elevator...not for inexperienced folks
Typically crowded hangar bay conditions at sea
Flight Deck control where all moves are coordinated and then Ouija Board updated to show status and what needs to happen (small "tokens" on top of templates indicate different things reflecting status)
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