More NAS Pensacola!

Found an F-4 Phantom II at the NAS museum.

Some stuff opened.

Alas, no boarding ladders.

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Here's an FJ-2 Fury(top), the Navy attempt at making an F-86 into a capable carrier plane.

Didn't really work due to landing gear and other issues, but it does look nice in blue. And that's an F-11F Tiger below.
Another shot.

The F-11 Tiger is famous for being the first jet aircraft to shoot itself down.During a test-firing of its 20mm cannons the pilot fired the guns while in a dive. Eventually the cannon rounds slowed down but the jet did not and as it crossed their path, it was struck by several and damaged, ultimately crash-landing. The pilot, Tom Attridge, survived, but I wonder if he didn't have to paint his own picture on the side of his plane in the space normally used to denote enemy "kills".

And this is a FJ-3. Not am FJ-2/F-86 at all but a redesigned version that was as capable as any of the F-86 variants.

I would like one of these.

Here's my Corsair again.

And an F6F Hellcat.

By now, Paige was starting to get plane fatigue so I had to let her play in the Blue Angels cockpit for a bit.

Found an Me-262, too.

Can't have a Navy museum without a Douglass Skyraider, right? So here's one.

And a Japanese N1K2 "George" is here too. Great plane, but like the Me-262, came along too late to make a difference.

And here's a Curtis P-40.

I'm thinking Paige is now really getting over-planed...

But there's so many more to come. I really had to make it up to her later, but for now, this is MY trip to Mecca!

Now that was a good (long) week-end.

Aaron from The Shekel came down Friday to catch the air show and hang out for a few days, and the G-rated version of this week-end's events can be seen on his page. But I just dropped his hungover self off at the airport and it looked like he at least made it inside so now the stories can begin.

Friday night I took him to work with me at a music venue where I labor part time. He put a couple pics up but I notice he omitted the best part of the entertainment. And of course there were adult beverages

Next day was airshow day, and it was good.

More on this later.

Then it was out for dinner and a second line parade--Aaron's first--and another show, this one where we were just spectators. But the adult beverages flowed free.


Sunday came and we went out to the swamp for a bit, and then came back and took kayaks out on Bayou St. John. We rewarded ourselves for that with another foray into the French Quarter and a few more adult beverages.

Yesterday we hit the Louisiana National Guard museum at Jackson Barracks.

It looks great now but it was completely destroyed during Hurricane Katrina and the pictures they have of the hundreds of historic guns ruined by submersion of the floodwaters is enough to make you cry. So we came back to my place and walked down to the Quarter to get some adult beverages to make us feel better.

I think we started out at R Bar (as seen on NCIS New Orleans) for a beer. Then I took Aaron to get some gifts for his kids and we had a few dozen oysters and some more beer Then it was into a bar where a lady friend of mine works, and she made us a couple of specialty cocktails that weren't exactly light on the rum, because she's a good friend. From there we went to Popeyes to grab some chicken on the way to the ferry dock and we went over to The Crown and Anchor, a nifty English Pub on the West Bank, to meet another lady friend of mine. We had a couple more beers, and a few whiskey shots, then caught the last ferry back in a downpour. And then because *someone* hasn't learned to use the bathroom before leaving a bar, we had to stop into another bar so he could go. And it's rude not to buy anything when using a bar's bathroom so we had a couple more tequila shots each and then I took him to a local pirate bar to get him his first Absinthe drink.

He seemed to like that 124-proof concoction, or at least that's what he told me a dozen times or so between there and the next bar, where we stopped in to see Janet the bar dog.

While we were there we ran into some Las Vegas cops here for a conference. We talked, they bought us a couple more beers, and then we invited them to join us for midnight burgers at Clover Grill, a Bourbon Street institution. Those guys were pretty hammered too, and wanted more drinks, so I steered them all to Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop and got Aaron a Hurricane because he hadn't had one yet and it's his last night. There we met a few members of a bridal party from Toronto, Aaron's home town, and one of us tried (and failed) to pick up the bride-to-be. (OK, that was me. Aim high, right?) We finally walked back to my place again.

I thought that it was a pretty good night, but Aaron seemed to have picked up a case of the flu somewhere along the way as he was still quite green and slow-moving this morning.

Good times...good times.

FALLON!!

So I couldn't not be in NW Nevada and not go to Fallon NAS, home of the Navy's "Top Gun" program now, could I?

I drove up to the gate of this Navy facility way out in the desert only to be challenged by some rough and ready MP types who let me right in and gave me directions to all the cool stuff to see once I gave them my ID and dropped Old NFO's name.

The actual name of the field is Van Voorhis Field, named for LCDR Bruce Van Voorhis.

And the plaque bearing his Meal of Honor citation is flanked by these two gate guardians, a Vought A-7 Corsair II (left) and a Douglas A-4 Skyhawk (right).

There's also a beautiful Douglas A-1 Skyraider just inside the gate.

And across the street is a slick-looking North American A-5 Vigilante.

And here's a Grumman F-14 Tomcat, a pane so cool even Tom Cruise could not screw that up when he pretended to fly one on the movie Top Gun.

They have lots of really cool warbirds on display in an open-air park here. I spent a fair bit of time walking among them and I was the only one there.
Here's a Grumman A-6 Intruder.

They have another Douglas A-4 too.

There's another A-7, too.

And a Vought F-8 Crusader, the "last of the gunfighters".

And naturally there's a McDonnell-Douglas F-4 Phantom. There has to be.

Apologies is some pictures look close-cropped or don't show both sides of the aircraft. As a guest here on this active duty installation, I don't want to photograph and publish pictures of the many, many communications and radar antennae that are all around. Erring on the side of caution for Opsec at the expense of numerous photos. Sorry.

More to come soon as I can. Many, many more.

Phound a Phantom (and other things with wings)!

So a brief visit into the Yankee Air Museum at Willow Run Airport in Ypsilanti, MI, brought me into contact with this:

F-4 Phantom II, McDonnell-Douglas's finest creation--and proof that even a brick will fly if you give it big enough engines.

Hey Juvat, this button you told me about--it don't do anything. (I made sure to stand well off to the side when checking it out though.)

Yo, Old AF Sarge...Any of this look familiar?

I wonder why they would paint something like this on the aircraft?

This was in there, too.

Be still, my heart. It's a Cessna O-2A.

This humble warbird may not have had the power and punch of a Phantom or a Thud, but then again, it was the brains of airstrike, telling the fast-moving heavies where to put the bombs and rockets.

Two engines, centerline thrust. And three hundred pounds of radios allowing a very busy pilot to talk to units on the ground, fighter-bombers in the air and ATC and command back at base, all while trying to spot targets and dodge ground fire while flying low and slow right over the enemy.

Twice now I have seriously contemplated buying one. And someday perhaps...

They have a heckiflopter, too.

Bell UH-1D "Iroquois", better known as "Huey".
(Look familiar, Old NFO? I seem to recall a few of your stories revolving around these.)

They just got this one in:

A-4C Skyhawk! Cute little sucker, ain't it? Introduced in the mid-1950's, it could carry more bombs that a World War 2 B-17 and deliver them more accurately. It was also the smallest aircraft that could deliver a nuclear weapon at that time.

They did it up as Paul Galanti's bird. That's an honor well-deserved. (Hey Sarge, you might want to consider this warrior for your blog Honor Wall too.)

More later. Stay tuned.