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Here's a Video for A4s & Catmando
- Thread starter HAL Pilot
- Start date
Great Vid's. EVERYBODY "smoked" back-in-the-day .... *cough*, cough* ..... 
... even in the cockpit. And how 'bout that Whale dance on one of the first traps .... ??? And that A-6 off the starboard bow cat --- can you say "clearing turn", or what ???
Looks like a "strange" deckload, in that there's lots of orange on the birds and they seem to have similar tail markings ...plus, you would not see an Air Wing with A-3's, A-6's, A-4's, and A-7's in any case ... but since the Midway was in WestPac, SE Asia, or in the yards during the 60's and 70's (this vid says '71 CQ) ... perhaps it was the VX's or TPS (lots of orange) running the deck after Midway came out of her 4-year yard period when they gutted her and ruined the flight deck while making it bigger --- thus, for all eternity, making her one of the more "interesting" decks to come aboard on ...
... even in the cockpit. And how 'bout that Whale dance on one of the first traps .... ??? And that A-6 off the starboard bow cat --- can you say "clearing turn", or what ??? Looks like a "strange" deckload, in that there's lots of orange on the birds and they seem to have similar tail markings ...plus, you would not see an Air Wing with A-3's, A-6's, A-4's, and A-7's in any case ... but since the Midway was in WestPac, SE Asia, or in the yards during the 60's and 70's (this vid says '71 CQ) ... perhaps it was the VX's or TPS (lots of orange) running the deck after Midway came out of her 4-year yard period when they gutted her and ruined the flight deck while making it bigger --- thus, for all eternity, making her one of the more "interesting" decks to come aboard on ...
How did they "ruin" the flight deck?
Changes made to the carrier during refit had some unexpected (i.e. poor planning) results. Basically the CG got all shifted and funny which caused the carrier to want to do a figure 8 with the deck in rough seas. Leading to why A4's said "interesting" to try and land on.
The Whale Dance was interesting to watch. I saw the Whale come aboard the Carl Vinson 5 or 6 times some where in the 1987-88 time frame when my squadron was deployed to Dodge and the carrier was in the IO. I was the VP liaison officer onboard (read good deal - fam flights every day in every aircraft the airwing had, except the A-7) for a couple of weeks during an exercise and a hunt for an Echo II that was bothering the BG.
I also saw a Whale parked behind the starboard bow cat get fried after the cat failed to fire with a F-14 on it. It took them a long time to safe the cat and the F-14 sat there in burner the whole time. The crash crew had to spray the nose of the Whale and it looked like someone took a blow torch to plastic.
One of the Whale NFOs went to VT-10 with me. He had huge nads trapping in that plane with its downward firing seat. He told me that the A-3 would eventual kill him and it did. He launched out of Guam one day and never came back. They think the plane fell apart in mid-air due to airframe fatigue. Shortly after the plane was banned from carrier ops and then retired.
I really came to like CAG Zlatoper - he took care of me. After I left the Carl Vinson, he went back to Dodge with me to visit my squadron and participate from our side in a harpoon strike against the BG. Zap told his DCAG it was "all yours baby, we're (the P-3s) are going to kick your ass!". And with his help - we did. 9 plane strike of which 6 got within launch range without being intercepted. Seventh Fleet was pissed and Zap ended up tap dancing about his airwing's inability to get all the P-3s. He kind of shot himself in the face on this one but he didn't seem to care. He was more worried about disseminating the lessons learned so BGs had better defense strategies.
I have a great picture of him mooning some F-14s from my P-3 and a great plat shot of us dirty waving off over the round-down in a P-3. ZAP ignored the Boss, came in for the break and surprised the LSO with an "Orion Ball, 45.0". The pictures are buried in a storage unit in Hawaii (I'm in Vegas) or I'd scan and post them.
I also saw a Whale parked behind the starboard bow cat get fried after the cat failed to fire with a F-14 on it. It took them a long time to safe the cat and the F-14 sat there in burner the whole time. The crash crew had to spray the nose of the Whale and it looked like someone took a blow torch to plastic.
One of the Whale NFOs went to VT-10 with me. He had huge nads trapping in that plane with its downward firing seat. He told me that the A-3 would eventual kill him and it did. He launched out of Guam one day and never came back. They think the plane fell apart in mid-air due to airframe fatigue. Shortly after the plane was banned from carrier ops and then retired.
I really came to like CAG Zlatoper - he took care of me. After I left the Carl Vinson, he went back to Dodge with me to visit my squadron and participate from our side in a harpoon strike against the BG. Zap told his DCAG it was "all yours baby, we're (the P-3s) are going to kick your ass!". And with his help - we did. 9 plane strike of which 6 got within launch range without being intercepted. Seventh Fleet was pissed and Zap ended up tap dancing about his airwing's inability to get all the P-3s. He kind of shot himself in the face on this one but he didn't seem to care. He was more worried about disseminating the lessons learned so BGs had better defense strategies.
I have a great picture of him mooning some F-14s from my P-3 and a great plat shot of us dirty waving off over the round-down in a P-3. ZAP ignored the Boss, came in for the break and surprised the LSO with an "Orion Ball, 45.0". The pictures are buried in a storage unit in Hawaii (I'm in Vegas) or I'd scan and post them.
Wasn't he an A-6 driver .... or B/N ???
Thanks for that video. It must have been taken not long before I made my first cruise aboard Midway to SEA in April 1971.
Obviously, none of the aircraft depicted were from our CVW-5 airwing of the time. As A4's has indicated, it looks like VX or Pax River aircraft working the deck. Our airwing was probably at Fallon at the time, getting ready for deployment.
As has been mentioned, the USS Midway was indeed difficult to land on. She became top-heavy after her 1966-1970 modernization which placed modern and much heavier Cat & Arresting gear, and increased her flight deck area from 2.82 to 4.02 acres – all this still on the same old WW-II hull.
In fact, during sea trials after its retrofit, she entered a permanent port list after a hard starboard turn that she couldn't recover from. She went back into the yards so thousands of pounds of concrete could be put in the bilge for ballast to keep her upright. But she still was always squirrelly.
Even in relatively smooth seas she would set up an oscillation and the fantail would do a frustrating "figure-eight". It was almost always a pitching deck, and a moving target. And with only 3 wires, and her 13-degree angle deck rather than the normal 10 degrees, only added to the difficulty. Nevertheless, she was still a great ship.
RE The Whale. On our second cruise, we incredibly had a Whale land/trap gear-up, unintentionally! Incredible!
The guy remained flying until a couple of months later, when he landed one night far right of centerline. His A-3's right wing sliced through three of HC-7's parked SAR helicopter cockpits. (Fortunately, they were unmanned at the time, but the vital SAR mission was a casualty for a while.) Needless to say, he finally got sent home after that one.
Obviously, none of the aircraft depicted were from our CVW-5 airwing of the time. As A4's has indicated, it looks like VX or Pax River aircraft working the deck. Our airwing was probably at Fallon at the time, getting ready for deployment.
As has been mentioned, the USS Midway was indeed difficult to land on. She became top-heavy after her 1966-1970 modernization which placed modern and much heavier Cat & Arresting gear, and increased her flight deck area from 2.82 to 4.02 acres – all this still on the same old WW-II hull.
In fact, during sea trials after its retrofit, she entered a permanent port list after a hard starboard turn that she couldn't recover from. She went back into the yards so thousands of pounds of concrete could be put in the bilge for ballast to keep her upright. But she still was always squirrelly.
Even in relatively smooth seas she would set up an oscillation and the fantail would do a frustrating "figure-eight". It was almost always a pitching deck, and a moving target. And with only 3 wires, and her 13-degree angle deck rather than the normal 10 degrees, only added to the difficulty. Nevertheless, she was still a great ship.
RE The Whale. On our second cruise, we incredibly had a Whale land/trap gear-up, unintentionally! Incredible!
The guy remained flying until a couple of months later, when he landed one night far right of centerline. His A-3's right wing sliced through three of HC-7's parked SAR helicopter cockpits. (Fortunately, they were unmanned at the time, but the vital SAR mission was a casualty for a while.) Needless to say, he finally got sent home after that one.
Downward seat? Try no seat, the USAF put downward seats for the crows in their EB-66. Everyone went down the chute in the Whale. I lost a classmate in a whale in the Alaska midair in late 80's.
A-6 driver.
I stand corrected. I saw an A-3 that is still flying at Chino recently. At least I thought it was an A-3 as it was painted Navy. It had seats on downward rails (disabled). Must have been an EB-66 painted Navy because after your post, I did a little google work and saw you were right.
Whales .... gotta love 'em ...
Main A-3 "Whale" website
GREAT STUFF: Whales, VQ-2, "Port Lyautey Squadron" ...
Main A-3 "Whale" website
GREAT STUFF: Whales, VQ-2, "Port Lyautey Squadron" ...
That was SOP ... you "nuke" boys are spoiled (and lucky) ... as smoke *cough*cough* was the standard in the groove back-in the-day of Navy black oil boats ....Mefesto said:
The first time I waved on the IKE ... I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. The ship was relatively new .... the AC worked all the time ... the water was chilled and didn't taste like JP .... the decks were clean ...all the heads worked ....
.... and when I told the Boss I needed 30 knots down the deck --- I got it. Will wonders never cease ... ???
An LSO's dream, these "nuke" carriers.