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Post by End Zone on Feb 9, 2021 3:29:09 GMT -7
I still get goose bumps, watching the pilots and aircraft do amazing things within the thinnest margins of safety. Great pilots ignore human boundaries. Navy Top Gun pilots ignore human and aircraft boundaries. Wow, I miss it. My Navy callsign was "Sarge." The callsign was assigned by the Skipper the day I strutted into the VF-2 ready room at NAS Miramar in 1981. See, I was as badass and smartass as any jet jock. SGT Saunders (Vic Morrow) matched my persona as a thinker and doer, per the VF-2 Skipper, CDR Chris "Thunder" Wilson. Sit back in your ez chair with a favorite cigar and glass of whiskey. Enjoy CAPT Maverick in the air, then me as Sarge Saunders, along with Little Joe, and the Army platoon in western Europe. Attachment DeletedF-14 Tomcat #201 BN 158629 1982, My Ride
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Post by thomas cat on Feb 9, 2021 19:27:08 GMT -7
I still get goose bumps, watching the pilots and aircraft do amazing things within the thinnest margins of safety. Great pilots ignore human boundaries. Navy Top Gun pilots ignore human and aircraft boundaries. Wow, I miss it. My Navy callsign was "Sarge." The callsign was assigned by the Skipper the day I strutted into the VF-2 ready room at NAS Miramar in 1981. See, I was as badass and smartass as any jet jock. SGT Saunders (Vic Morrow) matched my persona as a thinker and doer, per the VF-2 Skipper, CDR Chris "Thunder" Wilson. Sit back in your ez chair with a favorite cigar and glass of whiskey. Enjoy CAPT Maverick in the air, then me as Sarge Saunders, along with Little Joe, and the Army platoon in western Europe. View AttachmentF-14 Tomcat #201 BN 158629 1982, My Ride "F-14 Tomcat #201 BN 158629 1982, My Ride"
I remember your old avatar. At the time, I just thought you used a cool picture. I guess it was a little more than that... I have mentioned before that I have always been interested in military hardware especially air craft. The F-14 "Tomcat" is one of my favorites if for no other reason than the name....lol. The twin tail stabilizers, along with the variable swept wings made it one sexy aircraft. Then you add it can go mach2+ and take on as many as six targets at a time....it was on of the most capable aircrafts of all times.
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Post by End Zone on Feb 10, 2021 3:23:40 GMT -7
I still get goose bumps, watching the pilots and aircraft do amazing things within the thinnest margins of safety. Great pilots ignore human boundaries. Navy Top Gun pilots ignore human and aircraft boundaries. Wow, I miss it. My Navy callsign was "Sarge." The callsign was assigned by the Skipper the day I strutted into the VF-2 ready room at NAS Miramar in 1981. See, I was as badass and smartass as any jet jock. SGT Saunders (Vic Morrow) matched my persona as a thinker and doer, per the VF-2 Skipper, CDR Chris "Thunder" Wilson. Sit back in your ez chair with a favorite cigar and glass of whiskey. Enjoy CAPT Maverick in the air, then me as Sarge Saunders, along with Little Joe, and the Army platoon in western Europe. View AttachmentF-14 Tomcat #201 BN 158629 1982, My Ride "F-14 Tomcat #201 BN 158629 1982, My Ride"
I remember your old avatar. At the time, I just thought you used a cool picture. I guess it was a little more than that... I have mentioned before that I have always been interested in military hardware especially air craft. The F-14 "Tomcat" is one of my favorites if for no other reason than the name....lol. The twin tail stabilizers, along with the variable swept wings made it one sexy aircraft. Then you add it can go mach2+ and take on as many as six targets at a time....it was on of the most capable aircrafts of all times. The F14 Tomcat was big, intimidating, deadly, and noisy in its heyday. The aircraft was a big brawny beast and good looker at air shows. And it had some flaws. One was the tendency to go into a flat spin during air combat maneuvering (ACM) if stick, rudder and throttle inputs were not carefully managed. Or if one engine flamed out unexpectedly during a maneuver and restart was taking too much time. The infamous 'eyeballs out g's,' aka flat spin, can be deadly. See foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-five-maneuvers-that-were-prohibited-in-the-f-14-tom-1757179036 See "Smokin" Joe's notes. Tom Cruise make light of the flat spin danger. Cruise had no issues with extreme dangers, jets or women, of course. I'm looking forward to watching Top Gun II very soon. As for M2+, that was a slick bird only. Not doable at low altitude or with tanks and rails. Too much drag. I personally know of only one F-14 flat spin resulting in a crash and fireball. LT Lenny "Gucci" Gmoch, my airwing roommate, had to eject while doing ACMs over the Chocolate Mountains training range out west. Unable to recover, the pilot and he parachuted at 5,000' and both lived. They were very lucky getting out of a spinning Tomcat at 5K and living on to tell the tale. If you have a few minutes, watch this illustration of a Sukoi Su-27 Flanker fighting it's way out of a flat spin. The Flanker was a generation newer than fuddyduddy Vietnam-era Tomcat design and the distance between engines is much less and the nose is a lot longer, improving flight characteristics in combat. This video is not a real Flanker in flight, the background seems like CGI, added backdropl still, the training is effective. Note how the engine nacelles open and close and mil power (afterburner) is applied to affect torque / spin. Also, the pilot inputs stick and rudder to push the nose down so that he can regain Flanker forward direction and flight speed, thus escaping the spin. You can see the wing surfaces moving quickly. It's a really good training video on a big screen. Ensure your volume is turned up. Next is a Russian T-50. The flat spin is induced, then the pilot easily gets out of it with power and stick inputs. The engineers did a fantastic job with this airframe. This video is real.
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Post by thomas cat on Feb 12, 2021 19:28:39 GMT -7
I just thought I would add this. As said, your original avatar was a cool photo. Well I did a little searching... I found this this.... I don't know if that's the exact photo that you used, but its dam close. What the hell is going on there? Granted the photo ( because distances can be deceiving ) makes it look more dramatic than it really is. Still this is not standard flying procedures. Either someone is showing off, or this was unplanned technical correction.....hope it was someone one ( you? ) just showing off.....lol. A couple of other things... I noticed this photo was a scan of a photo, not just a photo. Out of curiosity, was this a personal photo that you took of one of your fellow pilots, or visa versa? The other thing is this, and this seems weird to me, but I guess its true. I wondered if the F-14 is still in service for the USA. As I'm sure you know, it is not. It seems one of the biggest reasons for this was its cost in maintaining it. We won't go into stealth at this time.....lol. The part that is weird and even sad, is Iran is the only air force that still fly's them. Apparently we sold them a bunch of them when we were allies of the Shaw of Iran. How they have kept them flying all these years is beyond me.
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Post by End Zone on Feb 13, 2021 13:10:35 GMT -7
I just thought I would add this. As said, your original avatar was a cool photo. Well I did a little searching... I found this this.... I don't know if that's the exact photo that you used, but its dam close. What the hell is going on there? Granted the photo ( because distances can be deceiving ) makes it look more dramatic than it really is. Still this is not standard flying procedures. Either someone is showing off, or this was unplanned technical correction.....hope it was someone one ( you? ) just showing off.....lol. A couple of other things... I noticed this photo was a scan of a photo, not just a photo. Out of curiosity, was this a personal photo that you took of one of your fellow pilots, or visa versa? The other thing is this, and this seems weird to me, but I guess its true. I wondered if the F-14 is still in service for the USA. As I'm sure you know, it is not. It seems one of the biggest reasons for this was its cost in maintaining it. We won't go into stealth at this time.....lol. The part that is weird and even sad, is Iran is the only air force that still fly's them. Apparently we sold them a bunch of them when we were allies of the Shaw of Iran. How they have kept them flying all these years is beyond me. I used that Tomcat CV flyby as my avatar for several years. Very cool pic. The Tomcat's starboard (right) wing tip is about 55' off the surface of the ocean--the flight deck is ~55' off the ocean on a calm day. That's a comfortable altitude for Top Gun "Maverick-type" pilot. A telephoto lens likely was used for the pic, foreshortening the distance, and making the Tomcat look like it's just feet from the flight deck pass and the LSO (Landing Signals Officer) platform on the port (left) side and aft of the 5 arresting wires. Actually, the Tomcat flyby set up was a few miles away, and the pilot pointed the nose at a spot probably 2000 yards behind the CV. CPA was probably 500' astern during the pass and just a hair under Mach speed to ensure maximum boom and excitement. I did not take the original. Although, I knew the name of the pilot who did the flyby but have since forgotten his name/callsign. He did not lose his wings but did sit for awhile, so I heard. The Air Boss had to clear the F14 flyby or all hell breaks lose. That would be a VERY UNSAFE stunt. The flyby was real. Probably during an airshow for the crew. I saw dozens of shows by USN and USAF aircraft. The best show ever was a B52 flyby at 1000' altitude. The bomber dropped a stick of 500lb bombs. Jeez, if that was what Operation Linebacker felt like, the Cong must have popped their drawers.
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Post by FLCardinalFan on Feb 19, 2021 17:10:34 GMT -7
I just thought I would add this. As said, your original avatar was a cool photo. Well I did a little searching... I found this this.... I don't know if that's the exact photo that you used, but its dam close. What the hell is going on there? Granted the photo ( because distances can be deceiving ) makes it look more dramatic than it really is. Still this is not standard flying procedures. Either someone is showing off, or this was unplanned technical correction.....hope it was someone one ( you? ) just showing off.....lol. A couple of other things... I noticed this photo was a scan of a photo, not just a photo. Out of curiosity, was this a personal photo that you took of one of your fellow pilots, or visa versa? The other thing is this, and this seems weird to me, but I guess its true. I wondered if the F-14 is still in service for the USA. As I'm sure you know, it is not. It seems one of the biggest reasons for this was its cost in maintaining it. We won't go into stealth at this time.....lol. The part that is weird and even sad, is Iran is the only air force that still fly's them. Apparently we sold them a bunch of them when we were allies of the Shaw of Iran. How they have kept them flying all these years is beyond me. I used that Tomcat CV flyby as my avatar for several years. Very cool pic. The Tomcat's starboard (right) wing tip is about 55' off the surface of the ocean--the flight deck is ~55' off the ocean on a calm day. That's a comfortable altitude for Top Gun "Maverick-type" pilot. A telephoto lens likely was used for the pic, foreshortening the distance, and making the Tomcat look like it's just feet from the flight deck pass and the LSO (Landing Signals Officer) platform on the port (left) side and aft of the 5 arresting wires. Actually, the Tomcat flyby set up was a few miles away, and the pilot pointed the nose at a spot probably 2000 yards behind the CV. CPA was probably 500' astern during the pass and just a hair under Mach speed to ensure maximum boom and excitement. I did not take the original. Although, I knew the name of the pilot who did the flyby but have since forgotten his name/callsign. He did not lose his wings but did sit for awhile, so I heard. The Air Boss had to clear the F14 flyby or all hell breaks lose. That would be a VERY UNSAFE stunt. The flyby was real. Probably during an airshow for the crew. I saw dozens of shows by USN and USAF aircraft. The best show ever was a B52 flyby at 1000' altitude. The bomber dropped a stick of 500lb bombs. Jeez, if that was what Operation Linebacker felt like, the Cong must have popped their drawers. You know I had to get in on this. For my buddies Putmein and Tomcat
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Post by thomas cat on Feb 19, 2021 18:13:27 GMT -7
You know, I do remember the show Combat. I just can't recall if I watched it that much. That would have in my pre teens to early teens days. lol....that's a long time ago. My cable company has certain channels that show many of the old black and white TV shows. I'll have to see if this is one of them. Being as old as I am, and maybe its just nostalgia, but I enjoy some of these old shows. I love the old black and white Gunsmoke shows. Who could not like Matt Dillion. I will have to see if I can find Combat on one of my cable channels. I just might find a whole news series I can binge watch.....
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Post by End Zone on Feb 20, 2021 6:25:37 GMT -7
You know, I do remember the show Combat. I just can't recall if I watched it that much. That would have in my pre teens to early teens days. lol....that's a long time ago. My cable company has certain channels that show many of the old black and white TV shows. I'll have to see if this is one of them. Being as old as I am, and maybe its just nostalgia, but I enjoy some of these old shows. I love the old black and white Gunsmoke shows. Who could not like Matt Dillion. I will have to see if I can find Combat on one of my cable channels. I just might find a whole news series I can binge watch..... I think YouTube has most 'Combat' series available. The quality is not good on a big screen though. Looks like 8mm almost.
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