Old NAP Memories

[FlyinRock]

How many of you served with NAP's? Navy/Marine Corps. The only NAP Chief I knew was Al Pena who retired then went on to retire again with the FAA as a General Aviation Ops inspector in VNY CA.
Some of the Marines I had the pleasure and honor to serve with on active duty were all MSgt's at the time. Bob Mossman, Bob Devitt, Chet Nicols, Bill Knapp, Lowell Truax (still living in PNS), Curly Chestnut, Bill Query (who I flew helicopters with in Ecuador in 1966), and others I can picture but names have slipped in my flawed hard drive. I know many of them have died over the past few years and those alive are in their 80' and 90's.All of the ones I listed I served with in Korea, Japan, or China then again in the states. I deeply apologize for not remembering the other names that will pop into mind sooner or later. I was proud to know them.
Anyone else recall serving with any old Mustang Pilots?
Semper Fi
Rocky

 

[A4sForever]

Didn't really 'serve' w/ him ... but the OPs/tower Chief @ NAS MERIDIAN when I went through was a NAP and wore his Wings proudly every day ...

And the Marines that flew us MIDDIEs from CORPUS to NORIS in a fuckin' C-47 (what a MISERABLE trip that was) were Marine active-duty NAPs in the middle-late '60s.

 

[Flugelman]

I flew with a LCDR Hal Johnson in VR-7 Det A Connies back in the early '60s. He had been an NAP and had gone LDO (or whatever the equivelant was for NAPs). One helluva a pilot and nice guy. Usually had a cigar chomped in his teeth.

 

[PropAddict]

For those of us born after 1960. . .what's a NAP?

 

[A4sForever]

For those of us born after 1960. . .what's a NAP?

Enlisted NAVAL AVIATION PILOTS = NAP.

There's still one who lives around here -- I interviewed him a couple of years ago ...

5 kills -- he's an Ace. He's also mentioned several times in Lundstrom's book: The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign

 

[FlyinRock]

Didn't really 'serve' w/ him ... but the OPs/tower Chief @ NAS MERIDIAN when I went through was a NAP and wore his Wings proudly every day ...

And the Marines that flew us MIDDIEs from CORPUS to NORIS in a fuckin' C-47 (what a MISERABLE trip that was) were Marine active-duty NAPs in the middle-late '60s.

*******************
Be glad, VERY GLAD it wasn't in a C-119!!!! Stories abound of those I knew and I learned a lot from them about flying as well as life and military life. You got to fly with the last of them too as they were all nearing retirement in the 60's.
Semper Fi
Rocky

 

[BusyBee604]

Enlisted NAVAL AVIATION PILOTS = NAP.

There's still one who lives around here -- I interviewed him a couple of years ago ...

5 kills -- he's an Ace. He's also mentioned several times in Lundstrom's book: The First Team and the Guadalcanal Campaign

When I reported to my first Fleet Squadron at NAS Alameda in mid-'58, I ran into a number of "Flyin' Chiefs". We mainly bumped into them at the NGZ O-Club. Talking to them was fun, gruff & salty (looked upon new ENSs as little boys playing in their the sandboxes!). After plying them with a few toddies, they "mellowed out", and we got to hear some GREAT sea (air) stories. They had 10s of thousands of hours flight time & at that time were flying mostly transports... R-4/5Ds, R-4Ys, and SNBs with the VR Squadron. By the time we deployed in '60, they had all gone. :yell_125:
*BTW, they always wore their AWGs w/ pisscutter, as did we. I think they had mini-wings in place of the Officer's crest.
BzB

 

[brownshoe]

We had one at Cecil Field he flew the station C 47. I never saw one, heard of 'em, but never saw one. That is until one trip to Yuma for a det!.

I was seated in the plane chatting with my friends when an O-4 boarded and sat in the co-pilot seat. As I was thinking “Who the hell is flyin' this rig” an E-9 Marine boarded and climbed into the pilot seat. I was astounded! It was explained to me that they no longer had an enlisted pilot program, but those that already had wings could fly until they retired or got out of the service. (Time frame mid 60's)

A4s, that was the trip (old post) when we landed at Barksdale AFB and were met by AP's, with dogs, packing some serious heat! The visit also involved multicolored painted lines on the tarmac and in the tower.

BTW... it took forever to get to Yuma.

Steve

 

[BACONATOR]

There is a video portraying the history and IMMENSE importance of the NAP program at the SD Air and Space museum. Last NAP was Master Chief Jones, who retired in 1981.

 

[blackbart22]

The guy flying the helo that picked me up the first time I crashed was a NAP. That was 1960. Later when I was an instructor in VT-21 our leading chief wore aviator wings. He had some problem that kept him off flight status, but every time a new flight surgeon reported in, he'd go take another physical. I heard that the XO had promised him that if he got an up chit, that he could check out in the F-9. Sadly, I don't think he ever did.

 

[Old R.O.]

I went through my first AVROC summer (think PLC, but for Navy) in 1970 and one of the guys in the class was an absolute pain in the arse -- a lazy know-it-all universally despised by all. In 1974 I was a fleet RIO and, along with my pilot, were heloed off the ship into North Island to go to Miramar to fly a plane back that was just out of phase inspection. In the terminal was "That Guy" who said that he was flying the U-1 at El Centro. (He said it was like the aircraft flown by Wiley Post.) It was somewhat of a shock to see that he had been winged, but not so much as to his first duty station.
Fast forward a few years later and I was in an officer's and chief's club in the Philippines (NavComStaPhil San Miguel had a combined club) and was talking to a chief who had been stationed at El Centro with "That Guy" and he told me of some of the things that had transpired there.
The ops chief at El Centro at the time was one of the last active duty AP's in the Navy and was as grizzled as they come. He was also current in most of the planes on the base.
"That Guy" was somewhat of a legend around the base (in a negative way), and nobody wanted to fly with him... even the enlisted troops that needed flight time to qualify for flight skins.
At that time the Naval Parachute Range was at El Centro and had "The Great White Fleet" of various aircraft, all painted white overall with yellow boomerangs on the tail -- at one time they had an A-3, TA-4, TF-9 and an F-4 with an empty cockpit in the back for ejection seat tests.
"That guy" really, really wanted to check out in the TF-9. He pestered the commander who was the ops officer until finally the OpsO said: "If Chief XX will check you out... I'll sign off on it."
About 10 minutes later, Chief XX comes storming into the office, slams the door and says, "Sir, what in the hell is going on?"
OpsO says, "I told 'That Guy' that he could fly the TF-9 if you'd give him the check ride."
Chief XX fires back, "Commander, I WILL NOT put a 90-knot brain in a 400-knot aircraft."
.... and that was that...