Approach articles from April 2001

Approach archives from April 2001

Here's the other one percent.
April 1, 2001... Another beautiful day in Guam, just like every other day here. We were in the middle of the best training I'd ever had: an air-wing SFARP with dedicated bandit support, live ordnance, and best of all, three weeks on a tropical Pacific island....

But NATOPS says ...
April 1, 2001... I was the flight leader for a three-plane flyoff from Hill Air Force Base to NAS Whidbey Island. The flight was the last leg of a translant that had started in Aviano, Italy, four days earlier. We briefed in accordance with NATOPS, took off...

Deadly drift.
April 1, 2001... This adventure takes place off the coast of Mexico. I was returning from another SSC mission that was part of the ongoing search for drug smugglers. As usual, we were working through another horizonless, dark-as-anything night. I felt prepared...

Welcome to the real world.
April 1, 2001... I was flying a T-45, my second hop on a Key West det. After some excellent air-to-air training, my instructor decided to do one last engagement out in the area. When we checked our fuel, he had more gas than I did, and I had about 370 pounds....

ORM corner: ORMing the storm.
April 1, 2001... Early into my nugget cruise, I had a chance to experience something that I had heard about only in flight school: a lightning storm over the Arabian Gulf. Our flight was supposed to be a routine SSC-MIO mission. After receiving our brief...

Ice, vertigo, goo and a whole lot of aircraft.
April 1, 2001... After more than two years in the mystical fleet, I think the following incident is the scariest one I've ever experienced, and that includes KC-135s at night in IMC conditions. We were returning as a four-ship from a Yuma, Ariz.,...

Taxiing our way into Approach.
April 1, 2001... I signed for an airplane for what was to be the simplest of missions: Fly, code aboard, VFR at 1,000 feet, an arduous straight and level flight from point A to point B along the Tyrrhenian Coast near Naples, Italy. It was a beautiful day. We...

Plenty of skippers, not much fuel.
April 1, 2001... I was scheduled for the second event of the day: a trip to the carrier to pick up our ship's CO and the CO of a CG and return them to their respective ships. The crew that dropped them off in the morning told us we wouldn't be able to refuel...

Impossible? That's what I thought.
April 1, 2001... Prelight went without a hitch. Apart from the usual summer buildups, the weather was beautiful at flight level 240. The aircrew was jovial and enjoying a Friday afternoon airways-and-instrument-training flight for a weekend RO2N. We even had a...

No, I didn't say "simulated"!(search and rescue)
April 1, 2001... Flying H-46s on Guam has plenty of advantages. For one thing, you get lots of SAR. The island, 30 miles long and 8 miles wide, is a tropical paradise, located along the Marianas Trench in the western Pacific. It is a major vacation spot for...

CATCC follies.
April 1, 2001... Here I am in Wardroom I, pointing at my watch, replaying to my buds how I was saddled in on a foe from a sister squadron, gunning him while he feverishly tried to escape my deadly gun solution. With my ill-equipped opponent nowhere in sight, I...

Re: "Three Clear-Deck Landings in One" (July '00). (Letters).
April 1, 2001... Washington, D.C. -- Just finished ravaging the July 2000 issue. I'm currently in a small, mainly civilian office in D.C., chomping at the bit to get back in a cockpit. One story ("Three Clear-Deck Landings in One") jumped out for a couple...

HTML versus PDF. (Letters).
April 1, 2001... Regarding your request for feedback on HTML versus PDF versions on the web: I prefer PDF. I can download for future reading and can read the entire magazine without calling up each article separately. By the way, I am a retired Air Force...