Approach articles from December 2002

Approach archives from December 2002

Hydraulic hell over Afghanistan.(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2002... My first night-combat mission began with reveille and ended with a NATOPS wake-up call. The brief was pointed. We discussed the administrative transit to and from Kandahar, as well as the tactical considerations of working in a killbox in...

No gyro, no horizon, no problem.(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2002... I was a nugget on my first deployment. We had been in the Arabian Gulf for the past three months, doing the same missions day in and day out, in support of Operation Southern Watch. The sky was clear but very hazy. The summer had ended, so the...

Low-fuel pucker [in the H-46].(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2002... Fuel management in the H-46, with its short legs, is an important skill to master. This fact came to light on a cargo move. HC-11 Det 2, assigned to USS Nimitz, not only stood out as different, but more like a facial mole in the CVN CAG. I...

"304, your signal divert ...".(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2002... "304, your signal divert." "Hornet rep. I can't. I don't even have the fuel to bingo." "Say state." "1.7K useable." (Insert sounds of CATCC exploding in chaos.) How did I get into this box during a Case III night CQ? With...

The rest of the story.(Prowler aircraft...)(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2002... Reset to earlier that same day. It was just like any other half-day at sea. Like they say, it just doesn't get any better than a crisp NORPAC day. Aircraft 304 had launched for a second round of CQ. The weather was great Case III--40...

Broken nosegear in the Prowler.(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2002... A good deal occasionally drops into your lap. Our squadron was to be the recipient of a live shoot of a high-speed anti-radiation missile (HARM). As much as I loved Whidbey Island, Wash., after moving there from Cannon Air Force Base, N.M.,...

Blinded by the light.(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2002... It was the day every P-3 pilot looks forward to after checking into a squadron: the first flight as a patrol plane commander. The XO was coming back from a pilot trainer, and we would turnaround the plane so I could get some pattern bounces....

The wily bandits.(near collision while air-to-air combat training)
December 1, 2002... I was a nugget and just had finished my first Combined Armed Exercise in 29 Palms, Calif. Up to that point, most of my flights had been air-to-ground sorties, with a few air-to-air training codes mixed in. We began our air-to-air training...

SAR jumps for two; birdcage for one.
December 1, 2002... During the beginning stages of Operation Enduring Freedom, USS Cowpens and HSL-51 Det 2 were working in the Guam area. Most of our time was spent working on qualifications and preparing for the global war on terrorism. Little time was left for...

A night ditching.(helicopter goes down at sea)
December 1, 2002... ate: Feb. 12, 1986 Squadron: HS-12, embarked on USS Midway Aircraft: Speargun 610, BUNO 152136. Mission: plane guard Crew: HAC: Lt. Ron Burton H2P: Lt. Jeff Lunn ASW 1st Crewman: AW2 Gary Schreffler ASW 2nd...

Letters.(Letter to the Editor)
December 1, 2002... We received a letter from LtCol. Hank Kramer (June Approach), who describes himself as "a retired USAF F-16 driver who has been reading Approach since the 1950s and subscribing to it for over 20 years. "He asked an apparently simple question:...

Operational necessity. (ORM Corner).
December 1, 2002... My crew just had completed a mid-cycle night launch from USS John F. Kennedy, and the butterflies that always accompany me until the "Passing 2.5, kilo" call had settled down. It was time to prepare for our Operation Enduring Freedom mission...

Land ho!
December 1, 2002... We had a 0400 brief a 0600 takeoff, a 0700 vertrep, a 0930 recovery, and a 1500 pier-side--for three days. We were one month into a six-month cruise, open ocean, and in the groove. Everything was as it should've been, or so we thought. We...

Mr. Toad's wild ride, again.(field-carrier-landing practices )
December 1, 2002... Our pilots conducted day and night field-carrier-landing practices (FCLPs) to get ready for COMPTUEX. It had been a nice afternoon, and I had signed as the plane commander for Black Eagle 603 for a formation flight. We would flow into the FCLP...

Telephoto NVGs.(landing helicopter on carrier)
December 1, 2002... After four months of patrolling the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific ninth skies, looking for narcotics traffic from the front seat of an SH-60B, I was so used to flying on goggles I couldn't remember when the night sky wasn't green. My nugget...

Zen and the art of briefing.
December 1, 2002... I listened in stunned amazement as a young JO briefed the mission objectives: "Protect the good guys, kill the bad guys, win the war, and kiss the girls." Where was I? In the theater watching a film from World War II? The event involved...

Brownshoes in action commix: "the kind real aviators like". (Classic).(Brief Article)
December 1, 2002... Page 3... You're on the O-3 level, and the Skipper's looking for you! Use your joystick to avoid him long enough to bring ice from Wardroom One to your stateroom! Action to burn!.... Price varies with Air Wing Page 12... OPS...