82Whitey51

Are they still in production? I assume you're talking about the Triple Conversion sets and the like?

Sell them on eBay! I dropped a F-82G a couple weeks back for a surprising sum. 🤓👍

Put it behind the screen...ya know, for the children.

What "Boom" said, in theater calls signs are generated higher up the food chain. Navy, generally speaking, for local ops radio call signs are whatever the squadron name is (or something related to the squadron) and the number is related to the pilot in commands hierarchy in the food chain, i.e. "Zapper one" would be the CO (Zapper two one, some junior officer down the line, LTjg or such).

Yeah, who knows, the "Navy's only UV-18A Twin Otter" in my post comes from the VXS-1 FB page post. Likely the squadron PAO didn't know of the existence of the CIRPAS bird.

Meehhh...I know it's kid of a "splitting hairs" type thing, but that particular UV-18, while owned by the Dept of the Navy is not operated by a Navy squadron or crewed by Navy pilots, it also carries an FAA registration (N83NX).

I can probably arranged to go take photos of the aircraft. I'll let you know.

I know it says the photo was taken at Dover DE, but is that "VIRGINIA" on the tail?

Kursad, I'm not sure how far along on this sheet you might be but thought I'd send these along as an option. VXS-1 (The Naval Research Lab's air component) up here at NAS Patuxent River just took custody of this yesterday, the Navy's only UV-18A Twin Otter.

That ADC gray one looks really cool.

Bingo...

Yes, absolutely. I would have stayed flying as a PO1 until I was old as balls and not give two squats about pinning on "Chief" (I didn't give two squats about that anyway...). Match my pay with my experience is all. Which they did in a sense, as a flight engineer you got "Pro Pay"...but even that they'd screw with on occasion, and you got flight pay too. VP and VQ communities you could pretty much spend an entire career in and it not harm you. I know guys who have been stationed at NAS Jacksonville and Tinker AFB for 20+ year careers. My career was too "diverse"; VAW, VQ (TACAMO), Navy Reserves, Air Ops, VP, Naval Research Lab..."who the eff is this guy...?" LOL

Are you asking what aircraft models are popular or kits in general? Because I'd have to say the Gundam kits are becoming pretty popular generally speaking. I was in a shop the other day just outside of D.C. and they had three aisles of Gundam kits, and about half an aisle of aircraft kits.

Absolutely. Man power management is all jacked up in the Navy (I can only speak to it, not sure if the other branches operate the same). You'd always hear about how having a "diverse career" and taking on new and different jobs is how you move up the ladder...only to see the reality that guys who have been in one place and career field are the ones who pin on Chief and move on up the line...because they've built a reputation within the community. Some other guy shows up who's been all over the place and people ask "who the hell is this guy?" On top of that, you have guys with the most experience transferring out the door and on to other things and now you have to train up new people.

Yeah those guys pretty much stay in their same squadron their entire career if they want to. Met French Atlantique crews and they were the same way, 10,000+ hour flight engineers and acoustic operators. I'd venture to say that any USN sub hunter acoustic and non acoustic operators have never even heard a Russian sub before...maybe recently, I know they have been taking P-8 crews up that way some the last couple of years.