USN 87-93

[Eddie M.]

These are the photos I took while I was an Aviation Boatswain's Mate (Blue Shirt, Crash and Salvage/ CV-41, CV-61, NAS Kingsville) from the years of 87-93. I was a big airshow fan before I went in and while I was in, I realized I needed to take advantage of my situation and shoot a lot of photos. Some of you may have seen some of these around before, but I've removed them from the other places they were and cropped/ re-scanned them to a higher resolution. They will only be seen here and at whatifmodelers.com when I get the time.

Though they're not the best photos around, they do show a piece of history from my perspective. I'll put up a few at a time as I re-scan them. I hope y'all enjoy them.

First, a few Tomcats from VF-1 and VF-2 while I was on the Ranger. Some of these were shot during Desert Storm.

[Eddie M.]

[f-15ERJ145]

[Devo666]

Sweet.

[Gambler]

Fantastic shots Eddie!

[Eddie M.]

Thanks Gents! I've got back into the tub 'o' photos and found a lot I wanted to re-scan so I will be putting them up in no particular order just to keep it interesting.

[Eddie M.]

[Furball Geoff]

Great shots and thanks for posting. I've seen missing refueling doors on F-14s before, but I thought that they were mainly removed during OIF/OEF. Did the door get snagged on the basket often?

[Eddie M.]

One of my absolute favorites. When I look at this photo, I hear it. Probably the loudest thing I ever heard. You can feel it in yer guts.....



Sunrise, first cycle....



Anyone want to guess what everyone's looking at?

[Eddie M.]

Originally Posted by Afterburner Decals Geoff

Great shots and thanks for posting. I've seen missing refueling doors on F-14s before, but I thought that they were mainly removed during OIF/OEF. Did the door get snagged on the basket often?

That was during ODS when one got sucked into an engine just after selecting zone five on the cat. I've seen FOD outs before but when that door went in, it was like a giant Roman candle. IIRC correctly they left them off for the rest of the cruise.

Originally Posted by Afterburner Decals Geoff

Great shots and thanks for posting. I've seen missing refueling doors on F-14s before, but I thought that they were mainly removed during OIF/OEF. Did the door get snagged on the basket often?

Everyone started doing it during Desert Shield when there was a lot of incidents of the basket knocking the door off and it going down the starboard intake. After that is was a common occurrence once you got on the boat to pull the doors off all the birds.

Reddog

[Eddie M.]

Originally Posted by Reddog

Everyone started doing it during Desert Shield when there was a lot of incidents of the basket knocking the door off and it going down the starboard intake. After that is was a common occurrence once you got on the boat to pull the doors off all the birds.

Reddog

Interesting about the baskets knocking doors off. They didn't take the doors off until we got into the Gulf. With in a month of coming back to San Diego the doors were back on.

Originally Posted by Eddie M.

Interesting about the baskets knocking doors off. They didn't take the doors off until we got into the Gulf. With in a month of coming back to San Diego the doors were back on.

If you weren't tanking on a regular basis then most squadrons would put them back on. The squadrons I was in and other that I know of would take them off once we entered the Med and put them back on when we left the Med. The biggest problem wasn't tanking from the A-6's or S-3's, it was tanking from the Air Force because the basket would do this weird dance, it wasn't as steady as the Navy's tankers where.

Reddog

[Eddie M.]

Originally Posted by Reddog

If you weren't tanking on a regular basis then most squadrons would put them back on. The squadrons I was in and other that I know of would take them off once we entered the Med and put them back on when we left the Med. The biggest problem wasn't tanking from the A-6's or S-3's, it was tanking from the Air Force because the basket would do this weird dance, it wasn't as steady as the Navy's tankers where.

Reddog

That makes sense and I do have a pretty nice KC-10 fly by photo in the old, hi viz paint while we were out there. There were tanking incidents with our birds, but usually A-6s tearing the basket off the hoses.

[Eddie M.]

"Good morning, gentlemen, the temperature is 110 degrees." "Holy shit, it's Viper!"

[Eddie M.]

Vistors......

"Roger ball. Little power, little left for line up..."

This guy flew right down the centerline until he had to turn to keep his wing out of our antennas

[Spaced]

Very nice. Love the Buff lining up for the trap there.

Originally Posted by Eddie M.

That makes sense and I do have a pretty nice KC-10 fly by photo in the old, hi viz paint while we were out there. There were tanking incidents with our birds, but usually A-6s tearing the basket off the hoses.

Yea, I've see that, we had a few birds come back with the basket still on the probe or the tanker package come back with the basket ripped of. We even had to blow the package or hose every blue moon, that's one of the reason we lost that whale in 87. The most common thing was the AE's blowing the basket off on dec. Semed to be a weekly occurance when I was on the Nimitz between us, -86 and -35, between the 3 sqaudrons some one was going to blow a basket that week.

Reddog

[easixpedro]

Originally Posted by Eddie M.

Never thought I'd see that on here... Pilot was a Dept head in my 1st squadron--Russ Gates. One of the best sticks I've ever flown w/. Named my son after him even. I can tell it was him, cause his crew was made up of what seemed like midgets--he was 6'4" and they were all barely 5'5"!

[Brian Marbrey]

Great shots Eddie!

Gotta love those lo-vis VF-2 birds!