Harrier Dude
Living the dream
*cough* Paddles upgrade *cough*
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Roger Ball, good and not-so-good questions about the world of "Paddles"
- Thread starter TheDrakester
- Start date
Let us hope you are attempting to make your dubious point by going to the ridiculous early ... as a contrast with reality ... Mr. *ahem* ... S/S
If that not be the case .... then you don't know what you're talkin' about.
Would I say .... ??? You betcha. It's impossible to have any street cred as an LSO with the Air Wing if you don't come in strong and finish even better.
It's the exception to the ol' rule that "those who can't -- teach."
That never happened in my experience. If anything, LSO's were "tougher" on grading each other .... you'd better be "right there" or you got a (OK) pass.
No slack in light/medium Attack.
.... Plus, if you're that concerned about the grades and YOUR position on the Greenie Board to the point of whether or not YOU are getting "good enough" landing grades .... you shouldn't be an LSO. It ain't about you .... it's about everyone else.
Again, if you are a good LSO (and those who aren't are discovered and drummed out/dropped) you will get the grades simply because you are the BOAT expert and have demonstrated yourself to be such an animal ....
Harrier Dude
Living the dream
The first rule about the paddles upgrade is, ......there is no paddles upgrade.
What? I didn't say anything.
What? I didn't say anything.
You should come over from the (dark) green side and try the tailhook Navy. Then you might become a believer ...
Harrier Dude
Living the dream
You should come over from the (dark) green side and try the tailhook Navy. Then you might become a believer ...
I did try it. I got my whopping ten traps in clown jets and then evolved into a V/STOL warrior from there. :icon_mi_1
I've enjoyed hearing about the tailhook side of waving (OK, the original stuff) and been interested about the similarities and differences between the two communities.
Among the differences, we don't take the grades so personally. There is no greenie board. We track performance and do a lot of debriefing, but there are no "awards" that go with having a high GPA. Just being alive is reward enough some days.
The joke about the paddles upgrade was more for Squeeze's benefit. While we rarely gash each other, there is also rarely a need for it. LSOs fly better passes, and if you keep getting gashed, you won't be waving for too long. You get to be an LSO (in part) by not sucking around the boat. Once you wave a little, you become a better pilot.
Our JOs on the last float seemed to believe that we were hooking ourselves up and being hard on them.:weeping_1
Of course, Squeeze is now a day basic LSO and has been shown the secret handshake.
Am I reading somethin' in here that I shouldn't??? Do LSO's actually GET PAID EXTRA $$$$
these days as part of the job description??? Or is it only the pseudo-LSO's on small boys/Gators and not fixed wing/big deck guys???The only "pay" we got was no in port watches. And once in a while the Air Department would fix the 7-foot wide hole in the bottom of the platform net. Fifty feet straight down into the wake ....
Unbelievable. I guess just the reward of the job is not enough these days ... ??? :sleep_125
I think the flight deck boys got @ $45 or $50/month in the ol' days -- i.e., standard hazardous duty pay. The LSO's were a caste apart and therefore got nada ... except for the supreme "hand" that came with the job -- no pun intended.
But: did they ever fix the hole in the net???
Unbelievable. I guess just the reward of the job is not enough these days ... ??? :sleep_125
I think the flight deck boys got @ $45 or $50/month in the ol' days -- i.e., standard hazardous duty pay. The LSO's were a caste apart and therefore got nada ... except for the supreme "hand" that came with the job -- no pun intended.
But: did they ever fix the hole in the net???
It's essentially the same pay as the flight deck guys, just under a different category for the bean counters. In the instruction (which I don't remember the number) it diliniates how many people are allowed pay for a given type of group and number embarked. Think of it as one of the improvements since your day, along the lines of paying us more in general. I know my dad marveled at my O-2 pay when he thought about what he made as an O-2 back in the '60s.
Don't know about the hole in the net, but the hole in our port helo hangar was never fixed. It looked like a tent city of refugees lived in the helicopter every time we had rough seas and/or rain.
Ensign pay w/flight skins in the ol' days .... $225/per paycheck when I got started.
Life was good, we were livin' in tall (or high - take your pick) cotton, eatin' steak 3-4 times a week when we weren't havin' a fondue party, "real" parties every weekend with lots of good eats 'n booze (good AND cheap), and gasoline for our 400+ CID muscle cars was @ 27 cents/gallon.
And all for $225 every two weeks ....
