What percent get to fly with open canopies?
How did he get access to a T-34? Was he required to keep minimum currency while on recruiter duty?
A fellow KA? You were probably around when Old South Balls were still kosher.
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Random Griz Aviation Musings
- Thread starter Griz882
- Start date
What percent get to fly with open canopies?
How did he get access to a T-34? Was he required to keep minimum currency while on recruiter duty?
A fellow KA? You were probably around when Old South Balls were still kosher.
Yeppers...Epsilon chapter at Emory.
In the mid 1980s, Old South was a week long event for us...and we wore Confederate uniforms...which didn’t go over too well on Emory’s campus since it’s a fairly liberal school.
What chapter were you?
Also, don’t ask me any of that secret KA stuff...I don’t remember any of it. ?
LATE ENTRY: I see that you’re a VMI alumnus...so you must be Beta Commission chapter.
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Back in the day, recruiting districts/offices hand T-34Bs assigned to them for recruiting duties. Rides were part of the aviation recruiting process. The pilots assigned recruiting loved it as did the perspective aviators.
You know... it had to have also been a good backdoor to recruiting URL/RL numbers too. Not so much these days when the attrition rate in the aviation pipeline is much lower than it was in the 1980s. I'm not trying to suggest anything one way or another, let alone bring back the past, I'm just observing something about the numbers. Just the numbers, that's all.
I wonder what it would cost Big Navy to run a small fleet of T-34Bs or similar airplanes these days. I know you could do it for a few hundred $$ a flight hour. I'm sure the actual price would be higher with the "Uncle Sam's paying for it" markup.
RV-8s.
Good heavens, as long as fifteen years ago we had to fill out ORM worksheets in the naval air training command for off-duty recreation for everything from water sports to spelunking (no shit). I can't imagine the heads exploding at the navel safety center and other places over a fleet of EAB airplanes and the "I've never heard of this so it must be bad, destroy it with onerous paperwork" mindset.
You're right about the choice of airplane though, those would be perfect.
(That's not a typo.)
Some of them also flew Grumman Tigers. It was pretty cool for a young guy to get a ride. I’d prefer a T-34 ride over an RV.
You are correct, sir. I was inducted roughly an hour after I graduated since we can longer be part of the Corps of Cadets and members of fraternities/secret societies at the same time.
TFW you realize yet again that you are too young to enjoy her another good deal boondoggle.
At the very least they could partner with Civil Air Patrol to get some familiarization rides in. I'm sure CAP corporate would love some extra DoD funding, especially with SAR missions kind of going away.
Reminds me of all of the safety meetings, briefings, and protocols we go through just to do small arms ammo onloads on the waterfront and then you look through the pictures of Sailors in WW2 loading ammo while shirtless and chain smoking. You'd never get away with that today.
Fun fact. The CNRC T-34B program said nothing about a 131X flying the plane, just that a 131X had to be assigned to any T-34 location and complete the qualification course in Pcola. NATOPS required a sat NATOPS check for PIC but did not specify 131X. So, when I was recruiting my skipper was going to send me down to get a NATOPS check in the T-34 so I could fly it. Same plane in the pictures, BTW. But he could not get the funding quota because we had already sent the 131Xs.
Once upon a time, NFOs were qualified to fly copilot in station C-12s too. They went to Flight Safety in Wichita, KS and did the same course the pilots did. As part of their NATOPS checks, they had to do takeoff and landings. I know 3 now retired NFOs that did this. I almost wormed my way into NAS Oceana's C-12 crew pool when I was at Dam Neck teaching TAO school but the Dam Neck CO put the kibash on it when the TAD for training orders crossed his desk. He said it would take me away from my job too often.
Nopers...not Kai.
He sort of looks familiar, however. I think he was a year ahead of me at Emory. Not sure if he was in the Greek system at Emory...he sort of looks like he could have been a milk-and-cookie boy [Sigma Chi] or a shit fish [SAE].
LATE ENTRY: Did you sing the [SAE] shit fish song at ODU? We sang it Emory quite a little bit...
I’m a shit fish
I’m a shit fish
I’m a shit fish from the sea
But I’d rather be a shit fish than a mother fucking SAE
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No SAE there, but we would have I'm sure.
Unlike some of the local chapters here at Big State U, we managed to not kill any of our pledges. BZ for us.
Yeppers...here’s one of my HS letterman jacket. Took mad dog jr. down to the local recruiting offices back in 2019 when he was a HS senior...and we wore our respective HS letterman jackets...
