240816 Good Times part one

I am a big fan of movies or shows or documentaries about anything in the navy.

My time aboard the USS Kitty Hawk was the best of my 11 years in the navy. I loved working on the aircraft flight deck. The art of flight deck operations during takeoff and landing is similar to a great ballet. Every flight deck crewman has to work together in flawless choreography.

I never tired of being a part of the operation. Even watching a navy movie or documentary still brings a thrill for me. I had a part of hundreds of hours of aircraft maintenance, takeoffs and landings. I enjoyed being there. We worked 12 hour shifts. Day crews worked from 7 am to 7 pm. Night crews worked 7 pm to 7 am. During the Vietnam War, aircraft took off and landed around the clock.

I was in an E2A radar control plane squadron, the first time the new plane was ever in service. The plane was huge and carried a crew of 5, two pilots and 3 radar operators. One of my tasks was to go inside the plane prior to its launch and check that all of the plane’s equipment was functioning. If there were any equipment malfunctions, I had to race to another squadron plane and rob a replacement part before the operating plane took off. If everything was okay, I closed and locked the door of the plane before takeoff and then crossed over to the other side of the deck and out of the way of planes ready for launching.

My first time out was for carrier qualifications off San Diego. The ship went from San Diego up to Los Angeles and then turned about and went back as far as San Diego following a racetrack pattern 10 miles off the coast line. The idea was to give pilots and crews practice in takeoffs and landings. While they were practicing, I would sit in one of our other planes and listen to the L.A. radio music stations. It was like sitting in a movie theater watching a movie, only the movie was real.

One late afternoon, one of our planes was landing. The co-pilot was making his first carrier landing. He landed too far off the left of the centerline of the flight deck. The plane was sliding over to the edge of the deck. Its wheels ended up in the steel nets over the edge of the ship. It hung there for a moment, until it cracked open like an egg into a skillet. It broke in half and fell into the Pacific ocean. The pilot and the enlisted radar operator survived. The other 3 crewmen drowned. It was a sight to see. Had the co-pilot landed too far to the right of the centerline, I would not be here writing this post. I would have been dead at 21 years old.