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Been on SA for a while and figured I should check out the aviation thread since its what I do for a living. I'm a Naval Flight Officer currently doing the instuctor thing with the kids in the advanced NFO stage of training. Probably going to look at my private license for the heck of it now that I actually have the time and money to do it. Feel free to ask me any questions you might have about the current state of Naval Aviation, flight training for NFOs or whatever. BTW, any of you been using the Nexus 7 with Garmin Pilot? I using the trial right now and Im really digging it. I am looking for something more than a strap to hold it on my leg; any suggestions on that front would be greatly appreciated.
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Nov 27, 2012 16:46
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OptimusMatrix posted:I'll get the first question out of the way. What are you flying, and what have you flown? Most of my time is in the EA-6B which I have about 1100 hours in. I have a handful of other stuff as well. I instruct in the T-39 Sabreliner currently but we are about to transition the advanced NFO syllabus to the T-45 so I will be doing that as well before too long.
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Nov 27, 2012 18:57
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Captain Apollo posted:Ever tried to switch over to a pilot slot? I seriously considered it and had the full backing of my chain of command but I ultimately decided not to apply for a couple of reasons: wanted to get my bonus, had some good quals I wanted to take advantage of and most importantly didnt want to take the chance of not getting back to carrier based aircraft. That last one turned out to be a bad thing to be worried about because everyone I know that got slots from my community that year made it back to our platform as pilots.
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Nov 27, 2012 20:12
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Ola posted:Is it true that the official Prowler community song is Jamming by Bob Marley & the Wailers? Its actually "Radar Love".  Captain Apollo posted:That sucks. Oh well, there are other things in life. No separation at all really. We're all pretty tight knit. I'm an O-4.
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Nov 27, 2012 20:38
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Captain Apollo posted:Is there a yoke/stick in the NFO's chair so you can fly the airplanes sometimes? Depends on the aircraft. Not in the EA-6B. There is a yoke in the T-39 but that is where the student sits, I sit in a jumpseat behind/between the pilot and the student (where the FE used to sit back in the day). As for the PPL, not sure yet. Somewhere in P-cola. Have to look at the prices but the good news is one of the IPs here has a CFI so I can catch a break there. e: Ola posted:Just saw there was a Nebakenezzer update on the past page, fantastic as always. Sad the next update will be the last, if they knew you would write such good posts they would've kept WW1 going for a few more years. Thats actually a pretty good summary. Make sure you're in line with with the target and the platform you are protecting and that's the gist of it. I dont mind talking about it but I'm pretty conservative about what I put out, probably overly so, but Id rather not inadvertently discuss something I shouldnt. vulturesrow fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Nov 27, 2012 |
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Nov 27, 2012 20:55
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Ola posted:Alright cool, I 'll try some questions out, ignore at your pleasure. I'm gonna answer these in generic EW terms rather than specific capabilities of the EA-6B: 1. Yes but a good a operator will figure it out and it depends on both the radar being jammed and the platform applying the jamming. 2. Absolutely. Frequency hopping is a very viable countermeasure. 3. Not really. We have a gold laminate applied to the canopy that basically helps any prevent any of that, even though the danger is pretty minimal. iyaayas01 posted:All of whom only have girls. I've done a fair amount of RFs and ME Phases. The way they evaluate EW and HARM shots is kinda bullshit anyways as I recall but then again it is everywhere. I did an ME phase or RF with Raptors and even with them handcuffed due to the internationals in the exercise it was an absolute killing fest by the Raptor.
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Nov 28, 2012 02:13
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Between that and the fact that the Raptors dropped out at literally the last minute it was hilarious listening to all the whining during debriefs...especially the one where the escort package lead completely dropped the ball so all the airlift died within 30 seconds of starting the vul.
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Nebakenezzer posted:Arrr, yeah. Let me fix that. THe answers you got from others is pretty much the long and short of it. Every squadron does it a little differently but the end result is the same. However it isnt exactly true that the callsigns are never used airborne, they definitely are.
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Nov 28, 2012 06:01
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Wow lots of catching up to do. Took a couple students on the road this weekend to Andrews AFB (yeah i know its actually Joint Base Andrews now). Thanks to my milbros for picking up the Q&A slack. Here comes some  Geizkragen posted:I'll jump on the vulturesrow QA session as well. Technically Im not a terminal O4 yet, my first look is the upcoming board, but the writing is on the wall. That said, Id put my record up against anyone's, I was just a victim of not staying on the "correct" career track and of the Prowler to Growler NFO crunch. And its ok to want to command a squadron, Im just suspicious of the guys who have that as their driving goal in their life/career. I was always more of a just do the best job I can and let the chips fall where they may kind of guy. quote:Short answer is: we don't use personal callsigns much at all airborne. Yeah its not an everyday kind of thing. Also remember I am a Prowler dude, there are 4 dudes in the aircraft and I may want to talk to a specific one in another aircraft about something. So there's that. quote:Lots of good, accurate answers on this already. The AF way is exactly like the Navy way, but we would almost (aaaaalmost) never do it in public because we're bad at decent, human interaction and behavior when we drink together. I was stationed in Oceana when this whole mess went down. I thought it actually broke on the boat when an AP reporter went into a Tomcat ready room to do some article research or something and saw said shirt and wrote the article about it. IIRC, the CO and CAG were summoned post-haste to see the CNAF Admiral, who I believe was Admiral Zortman(sp?) at the time. But yeah, we are mostly idiots. Delivery McGee posted:Ever tried cooking popcorn or a Hot Pocket or other microwave food with the jamming pods? Obviously you can't crank the power on the ground with people standing around, but I could see somebody taping a bag of popcorn to the radome before heading out on an exercise just to see if it works, for Can't say I've ever heard of anyone trying that. CommieGIR posted:Late to the party, but they had a couple Prowlers next to our C-130 MX squadron at Bagram, always wanted to go chit chat but never found the time. Almost certainly Army Guardrails. Google it. Orange Someone posted:From memory, the Prowler could carry HARMs, it's got the hardpoints for ordinance. I don't know whether it'd have the software to drop bombs effectively. Its not that ordnance fucntionality is removed, its that everything they want to hang on the aircraft has go through the whole test process to see how it works hanging next to jammer pods. This costs money, etc. We have lots of Hornets that can already drop bombs so the initial G models werent rated to carry ordnance. They probably wont ever carry much beyond GPS guided weapons because jamming is the primary message.
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Dec 3, 2012 21:12
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actually I'm a Kool-Aid drinker, I want to command a squadron one day, but terminal O4 would not suck either)
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I asked this before but it might have got lost in the noise. Does anyone fly with a tablet and software like Foreflight or Garmin Pilot? The reason I ask is because I've been testing out Garmin Pilot on my Nexus 7 and I like it a lot. However the GPS reception in the aircraft is poo poo. This doesn't really jive with what Ive read on various other forums. Then again those guys are all flying GA aircraft and probably have less metal around them than I do, especially I since I sit just aft of the cockpit in the FE jump seat. I'm guessin I'll probably have to invest in one of the available Bluetooth GPS antennas but I'm just trying to get an idea of what others' experience is with this stuff.
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Dec 4, 2012 16:13
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Godholio posted:Because some of us don't need any of that? As long as there's not a baby crying or something, I can sleep on any plane. This is a skill most of the people I know in the military have acquired.
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Dec 5, 2012 21:18
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Gullous posted:I've been on the flight deck of a 787 and it's drat impressive, aesthetics alone. The pictures don't do it justice. Everything is digital/glass/fancy, like one of them eye-phones. That is awesome.
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Dec 11, 2012 04:46
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iyaayas01 posted:Did I ever post the pictures of the Pavehawk with the stupid wooden moose we kidnapped from the 703rd? poo poo, I don't think I have them on this computer...if I remember I'll pull them off of my .pst when I get down to Vegas. They're semi-amusing. Ever do Maple Flag? I haven't but a friend did and got a ride in a German F-4. 
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Dec 12, 2012 15:43
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As EW guy I find some of that stuff iyaoyas was referring to be patently ridiculous. First off, hanging jammers of an LO aircraft is huge waste of that aircraft's capabilities. So theres that. Then the idea that a division of F-35s is going to be able to penetrate a sophisticated IADS all on their lonesome selves is equally ridiculous. Granted, there arent a whole lot of them out there. However, remember this used to be a selling point of the first gen stealth aircraft and look what happened there. As far as the Air Force airborne EA programs go, USAF has truly dropped the ball there in my opinion. I remember being at being at an EW conference years ago and a civilian from the USAF program office that was supposedly developing a next gen jammer was giving a brief. She couldnt answer a single question from the audience at the end of her brief and it soon became obvious the program was nothing but vaporware essentially. The Navy offered the USAF buyin on the Growler program to allow us to keep operating our expeditionary squadrons in the same manner as we have been with the Prowler. The USAF said no and so DON said no more expeditionary support for you USAF but DoD stepped in at the last possible moment and put a temporary kibosh on that although we had already decommissioned one expeditionary squadron at that point. While I'm talking dumb EW decisions by the USAF, they were also offered buy-in on the AARGM program (next generation of HARM) and they politely declined instead opting to continue development on the next block of HARM along with HTS development. The HTS is a great system, but once the HARM comes off the rails its still just a HARM, ie not all that great. This of course percolates down into the various communities to the point where I once had a CG driver tell me he had no concerns about loitering in an SA-6 WEZ.  But yeah I find the entire F-35 program to be mostly a crock of poo poo. The EW stuff is just what I'm most familiar with.
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Dec 14, 2012 06:57
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grover posted:Wouldn't the size and poor maneuverability of the EB-52 render it far to risky to operate in the types of mission environments a jamming aircraft is needed the most? One of the aspects Navy was really excited about with the F-18E/F was that it finally allowed them to refuel aircraft over contested airspace; something they couldn't risk doing with S-3 Vikings and Air Force doesn't like to risk large tankers for, either. I bring this up, because the EF-18G, while a jammer, still has the maneuverability and survivability of a fighter aircraft and is far less risky to fly straight into the throat of an enemy IADS. The EB-52 was intended as a long range standoff jammer. quote:Need growler support, but don't want to deal with the logistics/training/etc tail? Attach a Navy growler squadron under Air Force OPCON and deploy as necessary. Problem solved. Isn't this already pretty much what's happened? No thats not how it worked and the problem is that the only reason we were able to field expeditionary squadrons is that the AF helped fund them so the Navy could afford them. Now the AF doesnt want to fund expeditionary but still wants the benefits? And no the expeditionary squadrons were never under Air Force OPCON. They were always JFACC assets.
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Dec 14, 2012 19:23
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I've only felt sick to my stomach twice ever when flying. One was when the guy next to me was puking his guts into a bag and once when I made the mistake of eating the sandwich from a boxed lunch from the USS JFK while on a mission over Afghanistan.
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Jan 15, 2013 01:38
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azflyboy posted:I see a lot of transient military traffic at the civilian airport I fly out of, despite the presence of an Air Force base about 7 miles away. Yeah I dont know all the AF rules but there is no per se prohibition against us Navy guys going to civilian fields. As a training command guy we go to civilian fields all the time. And yes many FBOs do offer mil contract fuel, which is a better rate than for civilian planes.
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Jan 15, 2013 04:19
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Geizkragen posted:Absolutely more lenient. We land F18s wherever offers 6000' of runway, contract fuel, and the best food/FBO girls. If we're overnighting somewhere it's a little more stringent but not bad. For example in st Louis we go to Spirit of St Louis instead of Scott and in Colorado we prefer Grand Junction over Buckley and/or Colorado Springs. Mostly it has to do with faster turnaround and free food. The pizza at Grand Junction is great, the people love military customers and the visual approach is a much better view. Grand Junction is the poo poo. Its a place of legend in the Prowler community because we go through there so often. I'd say the guy that runs the FBO there knows many of us on a first name basis.
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Jan 15, 2013 15:50
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Ridge_Runner_5 posted:Speaking of; F-35. What is the point in having a stealth aircraft if the only way it can do it's job is by hanging a bunch of not stealthy poo poo on external hardpoints? Has anyone in the military asked this yet? Know what I find even funnier? People talking about hanging jammer pods on it.
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Jan 24, 2013 22:22
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Godholio posted:Off the top of my head, I don't think the US has ever had a dedicated aircraft designed to be a jammer. B-29s, B-52s, F-111s, A-6s, F/A-18s... Maybe just semantics but the mighty Prowler was most certainly designed to be a jammer. I see what you are getting at though.
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Jan 25, 2013 05:10
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iyaayas01 posted:I'd say there's a legitimate difference between an aircraft designed from the ground up to be an EW/EA aircraft (Prowler, Growler, Spark Vark, Compass Call) even if it's a (usually fairly extensive) modification of an existing airframe, and just hanging some jamming pods on a fighter and calling it good (like the Marines are ostensibly planning on doing with the F-35). Yeah basically what I was getting at, just didn't feel like typing it all out on my tablet.  As EW guy and patch wearer to boot I'm sort of frustrated with the state of EW in DoD. EA-6B pods are old as poo poo and showing their age. Hanging them off a Super Hornet airframe is really a band-aid fix when you get right down to it. EW is a huge force multiplier and it seems like DoD is really just letting it languish. To my mind hanging pods on an F-35 is beyond stupid. I really wish USAF and USMC would've gotten on board with the Growler and then we maybe would've had a more unified push towards a next gen jamming pod. In all honesty though a good deal of the EW mission could be handled via UAV, especially close in stuff, but again that's going to require some serious technology advancement on the jammer side of the house.
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Jan 25, 2013 06:31
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Godholio posted:Inefficient, but common practice. Preemptive HARM shots are definitely on the table. DEAD is better than SEAD, but SEAD is safer. Well its debatable as to which is one better, it really depends on the mission objectives. The Navy prefers suppression because an Air Wing strike is supposed to be an in and out affair. However the problem with the Air Force preference for the CJ tactics is that they have a great targeting system but once the HARM comes off the rails, its just a HARM, and as such its not that great of a weapon TBH. I have to paint with a broad brush because I cant get too specific. Its a bit of a soapbox issue for me and I've had numerous discussions with CJ guys about it during all the exercises I've done at Nellis. Is it inefficient? Yes but again you have to take the mission objectives into account. I did have a CG driver once tell me that he had trouble orbiting in an SA-6 MEZ. He was completely serious. That being said, once we were in Nellis and we didnt have CJ support for some reason. My squadron was flying ICAP-III Prowlers  and I basically used a plan that called for some of us using the "Navy way" and the other guys using basically CJ tactics. But it made sense in the scenario and it worked out pretty well. quote:Yeah the B-52 chaff story was me. The EA-6B can carry a bulk chaff pod. We've done a lot of testing with it. There was at least one occasion when it was dropped too high and took out a large chunk of center's radar. They weren't amused to say the least.
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Jan 26, 2013 06:46
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holocaust bloopers posted:^^^^ Day is fun. Night is uncomfortable at best.
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Jan 26, 2013 07:29
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holocaust bloopers posted:Ya but I bet a night carrier approach will wake you the hell up. I love night time pattern work. If I could type up a contract specifying that any and all pattern work must be done at night, I'd do it. AR at night is a fantastic way for me to go from docile to white knuckling the arm rest in an instant. Yes it will definitely do that. Especially once you throw in a little weather and rough seas. I actually dont have a lot in the way of pictures but I'll see what I can dig up.
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Jan 26, 2013 08:13
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Godholio posted:There are plenty of situations where it might be called for or even planned for. This wasn't one of those. He literally meant any time.
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Jan 26, 2013 18:04
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Anyone here planning on going to Oshkosh this year? In strongly considering trying to bring one of our planes up this year.
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Jan 31, 2013 04:47
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:Is it in any way possible to "accidentally" turn one of the pods on with ground power? I know they can't produce full wattage without the ram air, but is it even possible to get them to emit with weight-on-wheels? If I come it will be in a T-39, not a Prowler. ;-) As for for your question I'm going to take a pass. I'm overly conservative when it comes to discussing specific capabilities even something that seems as benign as that.
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Jan 31, 2013 05:09
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iyaayas01 posted:That's what you do when you are an unrepentant Nazi. (Seriously, he was an avowed National Socialist until the day he died.) Let me just take this opportunity to say that even though I'm a Navy guy I love the A-10. Such a cool freaking airplane. Sadly, I was flying in an exercise at Nellis one year where one flew into a mountain on the range. Sad to hear that comm over the radios.
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Feb 2, 2013 06:29
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Is that Honey Boo Boo's house?
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Feb 3, 2013 01:18
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grover posted:It's doubtful the "full-scale" aircraft is even capable of flight. Most people are speculating what's seen flying is an R/C model. Even to my untrained eye, there are obvious omissions, like no HUD or HMD (and thus incapable of combat) and there's no way that exhaust design would work without the fiberglass burning. No room for radar in the nose. No pitot tubes, no antennas, etc. And the design is not only unconventional, it's nonsensical. I'm surprised the R/C model was capable of flight, really. How does lack of a HUD or HMD make it incapable of combat?
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Feb 4, 2013 03:37
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I got to participate in an exercise a while back at Tonopah Test Range and we stayed at the place where everyone was housed during the F-117 development. Wikipedia has a good article on TTR; Mancamp is the place where we stayed. The road between the airfield proper and Mancamp is no kidding open, high desert range. It was pretty funny when we got a brief from the security guys and they told us "You really want to stick to the posted speed limits because there is a good chance you'll hit a wild horse if you don't." Staying there was pretty cool and tad bit spooky for some reason.
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Feb 5, 2013 05:46
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SyHopeful posted:I read this post, thought "that name sounds familiar" and then remembered that he is the author of this turd of an article. Gizmodo used to be decent but they have been sucking the fat man's rear end for a while now.
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Feb 6, 2013 03:43
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iyaayas01 posted:A military crew flying a C-17 managed to land at the wrong loving airport several miles away from their intended destination...and not just any airport, they landed at a sleepy municipal airport with a runway several thousand feet shorter than the runway at the MILITARY INSTALLATION they were planning on landing at. Yup all that. This is something I constantly beat my students up on. Check, check, and check again, especially when landing somewhere you aren't familiar with. Usually I'm talking about low level and radar navigation stuff but it applies to all facets of flight including the approach phase. I can't remember all the details but sometime in the recent past a Navy pilot landed at Norfolk International instead of NAS Chambers Field. Oops. fake edit: Why do you guys always talk about this stuff when I'm too busy to keep up with the forums?
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Feb 21, 2013 05:45
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Previa_fun posted:Pro-click. I've been interested in naval aviation since I was a kid, and all my favorite airplanes are/were operated by the Navy. Don't know much about the A-5 around the boat but talking to some of the older guys the A-3 Whale was a stone cold bitch to land on the boat. Prowlers aren't exactly fun either though.
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Feb 28, 2013 06:57
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MrChips posted:This isn't a new aircraft; Air Baltic opted for the highest possible density seating for their CS300s. To get a configuration like this Thy probably opted for things like slimline seats at 28" pitch while taking away certain cabin fittings like galleys or washrooms. I'm sure you've answered this at some point but what do you do for a living?
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Mar 8, 2013 01:13
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Flying commercial on AirTran today. WiFi in flight is pretty rad. 717-200 to ATL right now. Regarding the Blue Angels cancellation I guaranteeat least party of that is a PR play. But canceling those shows had been pay off the navy's sequestration plan from the get go.
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Mar 10, 2013 12:26
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MrYenko posted:To me, passenger air transport is a reasonably fungible commodity, however, Southwest is my singular exception to that rule. I'll pay more to fly with them, because I have yet to have a poor experience, unlike just about every other carrier out there. (I think Spirit actively hates it's customers, and would rather they not even show up to the airport.) I tend to agree with you but I'm having a pleasant experience with AirTran so far. Got me from Pensacola to SFO (about an hour out right now) with minimal delay and a great price. Maybe it's the fact they are owned by SW now?
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Mar 10, 2013 18:54
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PainterofCrap posted:I have a bit of a dilemma. Sounds like it's worth a few nights on the couch.
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Mar 11, 2013 02:40
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EA6B crash in Washington. Not looking good in terms of survivors. Writing to hear if its anyone I know.
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Mar 11, 2013 21:23
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grover posted:No, they didn't. The drone Iran trotted out was a fake. You're a good dude but sometimes you write the dumbest crap. First off, unrestricted OTH air-to-air combat is probably not a realistic scenario unless we're full on robot planes vs. robot planes. Secondly, as someone has already pointed out, the datalink is a pretty serious weakness when you get right down to it, regardless of what you think of the Iran thing. Working around datalink frequencies was a huge pain in the rear end for me and the engineers I and my unit and I worked with(and no I'm not talking about Prowlers, I was on the ground in Iraq). Now, I think that at some time in the future it probably will be all unmanned but not any time soon, especially when you are talking air-to-air.
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Mar 16, 2013 08:15
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| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 23:34 |
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Anyone planning a trip to the Naval Aviation museum let me know and I would be happy to take you out on the flight line to look at our airplanes. I just can't let you get too close to the Blue Angels.
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Apr 4, 2013 18:56
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