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!

I'm still here--and with more aircraft!!

Sorry for the lack of posts. The trouble I'm having with this PC makes posting less fun than chasing French Quarter gals.

But I caught one last week and took her to Pensacola to see the Naval Air Museum, a place I've always wanted to visit. And I was not disappointed.

It's actually on the base, so get ready for the 100% security check.

Hey look--an F-14!

And just inside (after another security checkpoint), there was this Douglas A-4 Skyhawk!

And here is the only SBU-2 Vindicator left in the world. And this one only survived after being lost overboard during carrier training in Lake Michigan and being recovered and restored 47 years later! (Shown with Paige for scale.)

And here's a T-28 Trojan trainer hanging above a Grumman F9F Panther jet. Yep. I'm happy in here. And Paige is somewhat confused, as before we got here she had no idea that the Navy had airplanes.

And I found a Corsair!

Here's a Vought F7U-3 (not a 3M as marked...tsk!). Not one of the more successful early jets; they were under-powered and problematic and over a quarter of them were destroyed in crashes and they killed 21 Navy pilots and four test pilots before being withdrawn from service.

And here's a few older ones...A Grumman F4F-3 below, and a sweet Beechcraft UC Traveler above.

And here's an F3F-2 biplane. This one was also ditched at sea off San Diego in 1940. Rediscovered by the Navy in 1988, she was raised in 1991 and restored and here she is today.

By this time, Paige was like "Why are there so many?" Poor girl didn't even know yet how much she was about to learn.

More to come. Stay tuned.













































https://www.navalaviationmuseum.org/nnam/virtualtour/

Dead ship afloat

A few months ago, I had some free time while down in DC, so I decided to look in on a landmark that I've admired for a long time.

Moored on the Anacostia River is the ex-USS Barry, DD 933. She sits at a pier in the Washington Navy Yard, and she's been kept up and maintained by the Navy as a museum ship since 1984, two years after she was decommissioned following 24 years of active service, including deployments to Vietnam and to the Caribbean during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Barry, shadowing a Soviet freighter off Cuba, with a P-3 Orion overhead.

Barry in November, 2015.

Aaron of The Shekel and I were aboard her once some years ago. We even visited a couple of the "off limits to everyone except us" areas during our self-guided tour and actually didn't get tossed off when caught not once but twice. I liked those Navy guys.

She's now closed for good, and the Navy is set to tow her off for scrap, probably early this year. It's a sad end indeed to a fine and noble ship, and one that shouldn't go unheralded.

Photos taken from across the river really weren't enough to do this proud ship justice, so I drove over to the Navy Yard and made my way down pierside to take some proper last pics.

I pulled every string I could pull to get aboard for some photos but per the director of the facility: "No one will ever board her again".

Barry's forward 5" gun, with "E" for Excellence.

During one mission in Vietnam, Barry sailed up the Saigon River to support the US Army and and put over 1500 5" shells on Vietcong positions miles away.

Can any vets help with these awards?

Mk32 Torpedo launcher, port side.

Motor Whale Boat

Just visible under the canopy is the Barry's ASROC launcher.

It's identical to the one that OldAFSarge and I checked out on the USS Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. in Battleship cove this past fall.

Stern 5" gun

Flagstaff is devoid of colors now. That's sad.

With the scrapping of the Barry, only two Forrest Sherman-class destroyers will remain, both museum ships. That'd be the Edson in Bay City, MI and the Turner Joy in Bremerton, WA.


This website has probably the most comprehensive collection of Barry photos, inside and out. It's worth the click.

If I hit Wednesday's Powerball, Barry will have a new home. Failing that, she'll be enroute to the breakers' yard in short order and we'll al be that much poorer for the loss.