CJ Martin

Top pic is ole 991, a former Pax bird that transfered to NASA in 1988-89. It had previously been modified to allow flight without a RIO onboard. I can't remember exactly how this was done, as that jet was over on the Dyna (contractor maintenance) side because of its unique configuration. She was there when I transfered to SATD in mid 1988 and transfered at some point in the following year. I am pretty sure that was also the Tomcat that they tested nose mounted canards on. That was before my time. -CJ

That is pretty cool...One of the projects I am working on is with now retired CAPT James "Mouth" McCall. For once, I am looking forward to a Monday. And yeah, this has moved to "must buy" status. If they come out with a foxtrot in the markings when Stuff was the Skipper, I will lose my mind. CAPT Jason "Stuff" Denney is currently my boss as the Program Manager at PMA-265. He is a two time Diamondback, first as a nugget when they still had Tomcats, and then did his XO/CO tour there with Superhornets. Both are pretty awesome folks - and scary smart. -CJ

The APG-71 antenna was slightly larger in diameter than the AWG-9, and it required the antenna to be fully in the "stow" position before fully opening the radome. Stow meant the antenna was centered side to side and pointing all the way down (same on AWG-9 btw). Normally the antenna would stow automatically when the system was shut down, but some failure modes would prevent that. SOP was to crack the radome slightly and double check the antenna was stowed. If not, someone with chicken arms could usually reach up and pull it into stow. Even the AWG-9 antenna could get caught on the radome if no

And that is why I have tinnitus 24/7 in both ears, and "significant" (according to the VA audiologist I saw) high frequency hearing loss. The noise isn't too bad in that picture, both engines are at idle. It will get louder... What I used to hate was being the outboard final checker and have one of those damn Prowlers roll up behind you on Cat 4. Those things would rattle the fillings right out of your teeth when they'd go into tension. 😳 Great write up GW, brings back some old memories.

Depending on when you are model, the canopy frame on SD 202 was the lighter gloss grey. This was from at least 1988 to the early 90s. I don't remember the story behind that or why it was mismatched for so long. I have a picture somewhere that shows it pretty clearly, if I can find it I'll scan and post it.

The Marines are deep into this, A-D Hornets have recently been integrated into the same process stood up for the Supers. The company we are working with is the Boston Consulting Group (BSG). I wouldn't say they are running things, but their advice carries a lot of weight.

Egads, this thread is starting to sound a lot like my day job. I've been working Hornet Readiness since last fall, almost 12 years after I went over to the unmanned world. As usual GW has the definitions correct. One thing you guys may not have heard about is that the Navy has brought in a high powered outside consulting company specifically to work Super Hornet Readiness issues. These are the guys working with major airlines on their dispatch rates. They are young and smart but are still learning the ins and outs of NAVAIR. It will be easy for the old timers or just jaded forum t

D'oh! Sold out!

I can't recall ever seeing them deployed on deck while I was in my Fleet squadron (VF-33) in the mid-80s. I did see them out while at Pax in the late 80s, that was during the testing that led to them being deactivated. We did some wild stuff to the test bird, an Alpha...they wanted to move the CG as far aft as possible. We removed pretty much the entire AWG-9 radar, antenna, transmitter, power supplies, receiver, RMO, syncronizer...all of it. They even put lead weights back where the ALE39 buckets went. Then they went out and flew high speed low level flights and melted a lot of the paint off.

Yeah something odd is going on with station 3. Also the daily and weekly doors seem to be missing from the nacelles? Can't wait to see the first builds.

1. When I joined the Navy (back in 1984!) I had a pretty clear idea what I wanted to do (Aviation Electronics Technician) and that's what I signed up for. I had a couple of years of community college including some electronics courses (telcom major) so that gave me an advantage once I got to "A" school. I asked for Tomcats and East coast and got both. After finishing F-14 FRAMP (Fleet Readiness Aviation Maintenance Personnel) school at VF-101, I reported to VF-33 in April '85. This was well before the movie "TOPGUN" came out. As soon as I got my orders, I found a 1/72 kit of a VF-33 Tomcat tha

The guys in the red jerseys are the Ordies, pretty sure that is what GW was. They are arming the jet. The ones in the white are the final checkers, one on each side. That's pretty standard even today seems like. This is why I have hearing loss and constant tinnitus, lol. As loud as the Tomcat was, I think the EA-6B was worse on the cat. Something about that airframe/engine combination, at MIL thrust it would rattle your fillings right out of your teeth.

Yesterday my family buried ABHAA Joseph Min Naglak. He was 21. He was also my cousin. Joseph was killed in the line of duty last week while working the flight deck of CVN-77. I learned of the mishap while at work (NAVAIR/Pax River) and the name didn't register immediately. Neither did the picture of a smiling young sailor in his whites. Joseph was clearly of Asian decent, and I am not. Over the weekend another cousin informed me that he was in fact our cousin. He had been adopted from Korea when he was a year old. My mother confirmed, her father (my grandfather) and Joseph's great

As usual GW does a better job explaining this stuff. It's been 30 odd years since I last worked the roof, and between the passage of time and a Tomcat related injury, my memory is not what it once was. 😉 I'll add one small thing - the above sequence is 100% correct for the B/D...when final checking the A, if everything in GWs post happened correctly, that was one thumb up to the shooter. Once the shooter saw that (from both final checkers, one on each side of the jet) he would signal the pilot to stage up to Zone 5 (full burner). As this happened the engine nozzles would open up. O

Yeah good video and that shows what I was trying to describe. One thing about the Bravo/Deltas...they don't need to go to burner to get off the deck. Saves gas, but less impressive. Particularly at night.

Yes a full control wipe out occurred on the cat once the bird was hooked up and run up to MIL thrust. Note however the spoilers on both wings do not come up at the same time. If memory serves the ones on the port wing come up ad go down, then the starboard wing. Best to find a video as all the control surfaces are moving and maybe not the way you expect or when you expect them. Bonus points for having the inboard spoilers down while the rest are up because "someone" forgot to push in the circuit breaker...be sure to have your troubleshooters preforming the "suspend" hand signal (arms / flashli

The A+/B also swapped out the ARC-159 radios for the ARC-182's. Side story, CVW-1 was the test CAG for the ARC-182s and as such the Tomcats and E-2Cs were field modified to equip these radios and the KY-58 cypto. This was in the mid-80s, all our birds had 182s when I checked int VF-33 in early 85. We had a mix of jets and every block had separate wiring diagrams, really just blueprints. Troubleshooting comm wiring gripes sucked. Fortunately the 182 itself was a good radio. -CJ

She was my home for nearly a year of my life. Aside from six weeks aboard the Roosevelt during shakedown (yeah I'm old), all my sea time was aboard America. The air conditioning only worked worth a damn when we were above the arctic circle, the freshwater was constantly fouled with JP-5 which lead to all sorts of weird skin rashes, and the showers ran somewhere between "live steam" to nothing to "ice cold" completely randomly (and often all three within a five minute period). But she took us to combat and got us all home safely. Better to go down like this than to the scrappers torch. RIP

We were very careful about this because of my previous work on the Hornet program. I needed two public sources for anything we put in the game. Jane's Information Group was a huge help. I had bookshelves full of the stuff they sent, plus I could email or even call and ask specific questions. Boeing was putting out all kinds of PR back then and we used that stuff for the cockpit layout (I was able to order a near full size poster of the F/A-18E cockpit from the Boeing store for example), to reverse engineer displays and all kinds of other things. There were a lot of similarities between the Hor

11bee, my former co-worker from the Baltimore EA office, Matt "Wags"Wagner is the Executive Producer for this latest game. Wags built the majority of the missions in Jane's F/A-18 and was my right hand man. He's a great guy and very talented, and it's cool to see him continue to push the state of the art.

I've been off since mid last week due to my son's wedding, but the last i heard is that one of our birds (MQ-4C Triton) would be a static display. The weather may be an issue though. Fingers crossed!

Having spent a fair amount of my youth standing / working on (and in one unfortunate incident, falling from) the real thing, I have to agree. Those panel lines are pretty big. It will be interesting to see how this looks with some primer/paint.

I am 99% sure the above pic labeled "NF-14D 161865 " is actually F-14A 159455. Spent many hours on this jet and the two "D minus" aircraft while on active duty at Pax. The D minus jets are the pair with Delta avionics and TF-30's. All three are on display on base, with SD 202/159455 in front of hanger 115, SD 220/161623 at the Museum, and SD 221/162595 in front of the Aviation Physiology building.

I was East coast (CVW-1/VF-33) in the mid 80s and yeah, cranial designs were very much an individual thing. The only thing we had to do was have some minimum area of white reflective tape. That amount escapes me. Also most cranials from that era would have a 2"x2" or so square of black velcro on the front, this was supposed to allow you to stick your strobe light on your head in the event you went into the water. Our squadron PRs made black velcro stars so we had stars instead of squares. I might have my old fleet back shells somewhere, if I can find them this weekend I'll try to post some pic

Fear the...bats!