For Tuna

When I headed out to San Diego a couple of weeks ago, I was unable to link up with blogger Tuna, Old AF Sarge's minion over at Chant du Depart, because he had other commitments. He did, however, mention to me that if I got to the USS Midway museum, I should check our their Lockheed S-3 Viking on display as it was one that he personally flew during the Iraq war. Well heck, if I can't visit a storied pilot hero, visiting one of his planes is a decent second. So I dropped in on Viking #159766, an S-3B once flown by VS-41, the "Shamrocks", as NJ-741. Before that, she flew the skies over the Persian Gulf as an asset of VS-29, but that paint job's long gone now, sadly.

Here it is, folks, the mighty "War Hoover" in all it's awesomeness.

I asked him for some flying stories involving this particular aircraft, and he made mention of this post that he put up on Chant du Depart earlier.

Viking History redux

And here's old 199766 back in her glory days with VS-41.

In his e-mail to me, Tuna says of the S-3:

In general, it was a very fun aircraft to fly because of it's aerobatic capability, flying with all your friends, lots of room for gear on cross-country flights, lots of gas, great cockpit visibility, a variety of missions, and it was easy to fly. This particular bird was exciting because of the new mission, the ability to count Iranian boats pierside from the middle of the gulf, the advanced electronic mission that can't be discussed outside a SCIF, and getting to take part in the war outside of just tanking returning strikers.

Well that's damned cool, because I never would have pictured the S-3 as beoing aerobatic, but hey--it's not like I've flown one; I just saw this one and a bunch more all shrink-wrapped at the boneyard.

And hey, Old AF Sarge...Tuna's responses here count as participation enough to give me cause to list him as a co-blogger. Don't know what you're doing over there to drive the help away, but I can always use more help here.

San Diego, and OldAFSarge gets me in trouble.

One of the things I did when I got to the Left Coast on a Saturday morning a couple of weeks back was tour the USS Midway (CV-41), which is now a permanent museum ship in San Diego.

The ship was insanely crowded, and a pretty expensive tour considering that I also had to pay for car parking nearby, and I wasn't happy to see 95%+ of the ship was off limits. (Basically you could see the hangar deck, the flight deck and a select few compartments below.)
But what I did like were the aircraft on display on the flight deck, including but not limited to the F-4 Phantoms there. (They have two.) And here, dear readers, is where blogger OldAFSarge got me in trouble.

You see, a few months back, he wrote about the boarding ladders on the Phantom.

Now me being the curious sort, and afflicted with a terminal case of Touchus da Forbidinous, I just had to investigate these Phantoms more closely based on what he'd said. So when no one was looking...

Nope. That's a step.

Those open the cockpits, but I'm betting that there's power required.

That's not it, but it does look interesting.

THIS one looks tempting. If I recall, I pull it back six feet and then something neat is supposed to happen.

Ah! Here we go. A button. Let's see what happens when I press it...

"KA-THUNK! KA-THUNK!"

Geez, that was loud. An entire docent-led tour nearby stopped and turned to stare at me as the docent stated the obvious: "Sounds like someone is playing with things that they're not supposed to touch!"

But I'm at my best when under pressure, and I thought quickly. Very quickly.

"Yeah," I replied, pointing across the flight deck. "He went that-a-way!"

At least the tour group laughed.


I did put it back in it's stowed position though.

And of course I had to go check the other Phantom of the flight deck.

Yeah, that one dropped, too.

After that though, it seemed like everywhere I went, there was a docent or two close by. But I'm sure that was just a coincidence. And if it wasn't, I blame Old AF Sarge.