Slowest gear retraction ever
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Cold War revisited
- Thread starter HeyJoe
- Start date
Well it is 60 years old, and built by questionably sober Tupolev comrades.
You should have just lied and said you took this while flying inverted over the top of the Bear.
I read it with great interest since he was aboard with us as we took on NATO and the Soviets. At the time, the Brits and the press were all claiming that big deck carriers were a thing of the past and could not hope to survive Lehman intended to prove them wrong. America sailed by the Soviet Balzam AGI right outside Hampton Roads and executed a deception plan right from the start arriving at the GIUK gap slipping by the cordon arrayed across the gap. Missions were flown 1000nm NE and SE to surprise the various ships looking for America I drew the 1200nm TARPS mission to photograph the Soviet cruiser Grozny (NATO name = Kynda) as she transited the English Channel it was hiding in fog but we found her....with Admiral addressing crew at quarters on the fantail...at least until we came roaring over in burner!
We did our share of hanging on the blades and sitting in Alert jets during crappy weather, but it was the Cold War....then came Desert Shield/Storm right after with boundless quantities of gas airborne thanks to USAF...BEST flying...ever!!
These are some righteous shots. Need to mention that the Bye Bye Baby Tomcat book you worked up is one of my favorite works on naval aviation ever, as much for the stories as the great pics. The stories especially capture not just the story of the Tomcat, but the spirit of Naval Aviation. Those sorts of things are also what I crave more of on Airwarriors. I get the sense that all y’all are sitting on a great deal more sea stories and laughs that I’d love for y’all to share...
thx...that was a true labor of love between George Hall, Bob Lawson and myself. So sad George did not live long enough to see the final product and Bob has also left the earthly domain. I assembled the vast majority of the stories which was a unique way of telling the story.
Another day over North Sea during Ocean Safari and another Alert 5 launch for me. Kinda made up for sitting in Ready Room for 2 miserable hours in a wetsuit and flight gear followed by a 2 hour stint in the cockpit in frigid temperatures and howling wind. This was reality of Cold War with a visit by Tu-95RTs from 392 ODRAP flying from Kola Peninsula daily to attempt to target the carrier. The prior SOP was to intercept them at exactly.200 miles from the carrier but SecNav Lehman was aboard and he wanted to play with the Soviets so we would tap them as far as 1000nm away in what was called “Sly Fox” missions in which a Prowler would lead the way with us in radar silent mode with a tanker along for the ride. That messed with their minds because they knew or thought they knew when the Tomcats showed up to escort them, they had 200 miles to go. One of the Intel guys told me later we had really confused them and all sorts of spirited conversations back and forth to their home plate ensued when they reported Tomcats that far north literally in their backyard. Of of the classics was “Are you sure they are Tomcats on your wing?”
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When we flew out to USS America in fall of 1985, the deck was not ready for us so we were instructed to hold. I looked down and saw the recently commissioned Lira AGI (NATO = Balzam) trailing America right in the sea lane outside Hampton Roads. It was our first encounter with this new class of purpose built Intelligence Gathering Ships so I knew our “Spies” would be delighted to have a color image to send up their chain back to Suitland. I later asked the flight lead about what he thought of the rare spotting and being more of a Tennis player (world ranked and All American out of USNA), he said “What’s so rare about a cruise ship, there’s lots of them coming and going?” He’s still playing tennis and coaching to this day!
Max the Mad Russian
Hands off Ukraine! Feet too
There's no RTs (Bear D) anymore. The main reason this version existed was this bulbous radome underbelly hiding the Uspekh (Success) radar antenna. That was biggest radome of all Bear family. This aircraft is a targeting source against aircraft carriers since the picture from radar could have been transmit to surf CG/CGNs and SSGNs as well with no limits. Or at least so the story goes, though there wasn't any crypto devise there to defend the signal from ECM. The Bear D was the real flying coffin: of 8 accidents there was just one survivor, the tail gunner WO, and only due to his conscription time in Soviet Army Airborne (Blue Berets) so he knew how to bail out by the "jerk jump", i.e. first employing the chute while stay with the aircfart and wait until the full chute pulls your body off hatch, a crazy deadly method for low drop developed by those fucking berets. All the rest 87 people died. Escaping the tail cockpit was easy enough, and both tail gunner and ELINT operator who had seats there should bailed out until the bird went in inverted flat spin which it has as a habit when just anyone propeller lost feathering ability (which was a habit, too). But the forward cockpit had no ways out at all: any drop shold have been made from the nose gear well, so that fucking gear should has been down firstly, which is the big deal in itself while in inverted spin. And then, if someone was stupid enough to jump down through the well's hatch, he had ineviеably hit that fucking Uspekh radome. To prove that Bear D is unescapable for 9 of 11 crewmember, some fresh eggs were dropped in the open well while aloft, and there were just equal number of little yellow stains on the radome during after-landing inspection. From that moment, the escaping instruction has been modified for Bear D (not for all family of Bears, just for D-model) that a tail should bail out and after that the airplane should ditch. Chances to survive weren't higher but at least the tob brass listened the crew, which was extremely rare case in Soviet Naval Aviation.
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For that reason, if the balloon went up, our job was to take out the Bears immediately. They always operated in pairs so each one had an armed Tomcat on them NLT 200nm from the
carrier. They were armed, too with multiple 23 guns which we watched closely note: the tailgunner has his guns pointed upwards per standard ROE. We, in turn, did not lock them up with our radar.
Max the Mad Russian
Hands off Ukraine! Feet too
This "cruise ship" had one or two 30-mm Gatling guns, BTW. Interestingly, there wasn't an officer in charge of these guns there, all the practice and usage shouldered on one CPO and three E-3s, who had been usually transferred to such vessels from the small combattants. These ships had another funny C2 aspect: the captains were mostly former small combattants Navs while the true 2C was not XO but CO's Deputy for Intel, who, though wearing the Navy uniform, was often a non-ROTCed college grad closely similar to old good Bletchley Park math freak. Both CO, a regular shipdriver, and this Intel guy on the bridge looked like a redneck who's trying to charm the Ivy League professor. It was always unclear who's commanding whom
Max the Mad Russian
Hands off Ukraine! Feet too
That is why the Bear D crews were called "suicide bombers": airplane based on bomber's airframe filled with siucide-prone people.