Yesterday I played "hookie" from hosting the campground and went down to Pensacola NAS to visit the Museum. The last time I was there was 25 or 30 years ago and it was a big old building with some airplanes inside. Most of the aircraft were out on the grass, pretty much rotting away.
What a change! With no government money they have built a state of the art facility, including a restoration center. Still not enough room for the aircraft they have. The 300,000 sq ft facility was due to have another 150,000 sq ft added. They thought they had raised enough money. But the hurricanes have driven the cost of building materials up so much that the expansion is on hold for now.
More and more "in betweens". I arrived at 10:00. When I went to the info desk I found out that the next flight line tour bus was leaving at 10:30 and it had a seat available. When I was here with Jeff and Adam we just went out and climbed around the aircraft. 9/11 has changed everything. Now you can only get to the outside airplanes on a tour bus.
BUT the tour I took was the only one of the day that got to leave the bus and spend some time in the restoration hangar. Because it was there when the workers - all volunteers by the way - were on lunch break. Dave, the driver/tour guide was a retired Marine who had been an aircraft mechanic in WWII, Korea AND Vietnam. He had some great stories and history on the airplanes he showed us.
Then it was back inside to the "Fighter Simulator" area. A 20 minute video briefing followed by 20 minutes in a Navy F-14 Tomcat simulator. What a rush. I flew very well. There were four of us in a dogfight. I actually found a couple of them (we didn't have a radar intercept officer) and got off a bunch of shots. I didn't hit any, but none of them got me, either.
I was feeling pretty good.
THEN it came time to land on the carrier.
I had 7 or 8 tries. Crashed every time.
I did succeed in hitting the deck at the right place once.
Unfortunately, I was inverted.
The instructor gave me credit for the landing because she said, "You can't catch the arresting cable when your tailhook is sticking straight up in the air. But you hit hard enough you wouldn't have slid off the end."
The snack bar is another new feature. When we got thrown out of the Philippines, the Navy packed up the entire Officer's Club bar from NAS Cubi Point and rebuilt it at the museum. Right down to the long board shuffleboard.
The Blue Angels were tentatively scheduled for a second practice session at 1:30. They normally only practice once a day but they lost #6 in Beaufort, SC two weeks ago and they took a week off to regroup. I figured I'd hit the snack bar early, before the lunch crowd and walk out to the parking lot in time to see them fly. The leader of a group of 60 school kids thought the same thing, just moments before I did. The hostess said, "I don't think there's a seat in the entire place. But let me check the bar." She led me to the only seat in the place - at the far end of the bar.
I sat next to two volunteer guides. A man and a woman who obviously knew each other. We ended up kidding each other and the bartender quite a bit. The man was a "Volunteer Emeritus" who only came in occasionally. He came in this day to give the bartender an autographed picture. She asked him, "I don't want to put this here in the bar. Would you mind if I took it home, had it framed and put it in my office?" He said, "Of course not. I gave it to you. Do whatever you want with it."
When she gave the man his bill he said, "I'm paying for her, too." The lady protested but he insisted. The bartender said, "In that case it's $500.00" and he said it was worth it just to spend some time with the lady and the bartender. When I told the bartender, "If he's paying $500.00, just include mine, too." She laughed and said, "OK." The lady left and I asked for a check. The bartender said, "Oh no. He took care of it." I thanked him but said I really was just kidding and tried to reimburse him. He said, "No. I've always wanted to do that. And when else would I have been able to say 'Put the whole bar on my tab' and spent $7.85?" I said that couldn't be for all of us and the bartender said, "Yes it was. They get the employee discount and since he was paying, I wrote your ticket up as an employee, too." I thanked him again.
As I was leaving the bartender came over to me and asked, "Do you know who that is?"
I said, "Sure. An old Navy pilot."
She said, "Oh God, don't let him hear you say that. He's a Marine. He flew with VMF-214. The Black Sheep Squadron. That picture he just gave me is of him and the boys with Pappy Boyington." So I sat back down and we talked for an hour. He really didn't want to talk WWII. I guess he figured I'd heard all the stories and seen the TV show. He wanted to talk about flying his piston powered fighters in Korea. They couldn't get up high enough to tangle with the MIGs so they were used as close air support and to bomb and strafe the North Korean convoys. The only reason I'm not still there listening to him is that he had someplace else he had to be.
I went outside and started toward the parking lot where the spectators were hoping to see the Blues 1/2 mile away, through a gap between the restoration facility and a hill. For the regular morning practices, you can walk, escorted, to some bleachers near the runway. But the afternoon practices aren't "open to the public" because they might not fly. Instead of joining the crowd, I chose a spot along the road, in the shade of a big live oak tree.
Time for another "in between". Here comes Dave in the tour bus. "Hey, I've got one seat - if you want to take the tour again, we may be on the flight line when the Blues fly."
Totally against the rules. I didn't have the required ticket and there really wasn't a seat. I sat in the tour guide's seat, sitting literally on the dashboard, facing backwards. I jumped in, we went through the gate and sure enough, about 15 minutes later they started flying.
With us sitting right on the taxiway.
The flight of four takes off all together in a "V" and as soon as they break ground, #4 drops back and to the left so they climb out in their trademark diamond formation. That happened as they passed us, maybe 50' in the air and 300' away. The whole bus shook from the sound. They were a little loose, understandable with the loss of a team member just a week and a half before.
When they're performing, the wing tips are 18" above the canopy of the closest aircraft. I've watched them 20 or 30 times and they always took my breath away. Dave said, "They don't do anything foolish or reckless, but EVERYTHING they do is extremely dangerous.
Then Dave said we could get out of the bus and stand on the taxiway to watch. He said he had to go back in 30 minutes to pick up the next tour group. He'd had a good career and really didn't want to end it by getting fired from a volunteer job. But we stood and watched, up close and personal for that 30 minutes. I tried to convince the 15 people with me that if we tied him up, he wouldn't get fired. Nobody offered to help and I wasn't about to tackle a Marine all by myself.
Even an old one.
We reluctantly got back in the bus. I got out right outside the gate and joined the people in the parking lot for another 15 minutes of flying. Then back to the museum for a couple of hours followed by a very nice bike ride back to Mystic Springs.
What a change! With no government money they have built a state of the art facility, including a restoration center. Still not enough room for the aircraft they have. The 300,000 sq ft facility was due to have another 150,000 sq ft added. They thought they had raised enough money. But the hurricanes have driven the cost of building materials up so much that the expansion is on hold for now.
More and more "in betweens". I arrived at 10:00. When I went to the info desk I found out that the next flight line tour bus was leaving at 10:30 and it had a seat available. When I was here with Jeff and Adam we just went out and climbed around the aircraft. 9/11 has changed everything. Now you can only get to the outside airplanes on a tour bus.
BUT the tour I took was the only one of the day that got to leave the bus and spend some time in the restoration hangar. Because it was there when the workers - all volunteers by the way - were on lunch break. Dave, the driver/tour guide was a retired Marine who had been an aircraft mechanic in WWII, Korea AND Vietnam. He had some great stories and history on the airplanes he showed us.
Then it was back inside to the "Fighter Simulator" area. A 20 minute video briefing followed by 20 minutes in a Navy F-14 Tomcat simulator. What a rush. I flew very well. There were four of us in a dogfight. I actually found a couple of them (we didn't have a radar intercept officer) and got off a bunch of shots. I didn't hit any, but none of them got me, either.
I was feeling pretty good.
THEN it came time to land on the carrier.
I had 7 or 8 tries. Crashed every time.
I did succeed in hitting the deck at the right place once.
Unfortunately, I was inverted.
The instructor gave me credit for the landing because she said, "You can't catch the arresting cable when your tailhook is sticking straight up in the air. But you hit hard enough you wouldn't have slid off the end."
The snack bar is another new feature. When we got thrown out of the Philippines, the Navy packed up the entire Officer's Club bar from NAS Cubi Point and rebuilt it at the museum. Right down to the long board shuffleboard.
The Blue Angels were tentatively scheduled for a second practice session at 1:30. They normally only practice once a day but they lost #6 in Beaufort, SC two weeks ago and they took a week off to regroup. I figured I'd hit the snack bar early, before the lunch crowd and walk out to the parking lot in time to see them fly. The leader of a group of 60 school kids thought the same thing, just moments before I did. The hostess said, "I don't think there's a seat in the entire place. But let me check the bar." She led me to the only seat in the place - at the far end of the bar.
I sat next to two volunteer guides. A man and a woman who obviously knew each other. We ended up kidding each other and the bartender quite a bit. The man was a "Volunteer Emeritus" who only came in occasionally. He came in this day to give the bartender an autographed picture. She asked him, "I don't want to put this here in the bar. Would you mind if I took it home, had it framed and put it in my office?" He said, "Of course not. I gave it to you. Do whatever you want with it."
When she gave the man his bill he said, "I'm paying for her, too." The lady protested but he insisted. The bartender said, "In that case it's $500.00" and he said it was worth it just to spend some time with the lady and the bartender. When I told the bartender, "If he's paying $500.00, just include mine, too." She laughed and said, "OK." The lady left and I asked for a check. The bartender said, "Oh no. He took care of it." I thanked him but said I really was just kidding and tried to reimburse him. He said, "No. I've always wanted to do that. And when else would I have been able to say 'Put the whole bar on my tab' and spent $7.85?" I said that couldn't be for all of us and the bartender said, "Yes it was. They get the employee discount and since he was paying, I wrote your ticket up as an employee, too." I thanked him again.
As I was leaving the bartender came over to me and asked, "Do you know who that is?"
I said, "Sure. An old Navy pilot."
She said, "Oh God, don't let him hear you say that. He's a Marine. He flew with VMF-214. The Black Sheep Squadron. That picture he just gave me is of him and the boys with Pappy Boyington." So I sat back down and we talked for an hour. He really didn't want to talk WWII. I guess he figured I'd heard all the stories and seen the TV show. He wanted to talk about flying his piston powered fighters in Korea. They couldn't get up high enough to tangle with the MIGs so they were used as close air support and to bomb and strafe the North Korean convoys. The only reason I'm not still there listening to him is that he had someplace else he had to be.
I went outside and started toward the parking lot where the spectators were hoping to see the Blues 1/2 mile away, through a gap between the restoration facility and a hill. For the regular morning practices, you can walk, escorted, to some bleachers near the runway. But the afternoon practices aren't "open to the public" because they might not fly. Instead of joining the crowd, I chose a spot along the road, in the shade of a big live oak tree.
Time for another "in between". Here comes Dave in the tour bus. "Hey, I've got one seat - if you want to take the tour again, we may be on the flight line when the Blues fly."
Totally against the rules. I didn't have the required ticket and there really wasn't a seat. I sat in the tour guide's seat, sitting literally on the dashboard, facing backwards. I jumped in, we went through the gate and sure enough, about 15 minutes later they started flying.
With us sitting right on the taxiway.
The flight of four takes off all together in a "V" and as soon as they break ground, #4 drops back and to the left so they climb out in their trademark diamond formation. That happened as they passed us, maybe 50' in the air and 300' away. The whole bus shook from the sound. They were a little loose, understandable with the loss of a team member just a week and a half before.
When they're performing, the wing tips are 18" above the canopy of the closest aircraft. I've watched them 20 or 30 times and they always took my breath away. Dave said, "They don't do anything foolish or reckless, but EVERYTHING they do is extremely dangerous.
Then Dave said we could get out of the bus and stand on the taxiway to watch. He said he had to go back in 30 minutes to pick up the next tour group. He'd had a good career and really didn't want to end it by getting fired from a volunteer job. But we stood and watched, up close and personal for that 30 minutes. I tried to convince the 15 people with me that if we tied him up, he wouldn't get fired. Nobody offered to help and I wasn't about to tackle a Marine all by myself.
Even an old one.
We reluctantly got back in the bus. I got out right outside the gate and joined the people in the parking lot for another 15 minutes of flying. Then back to the museum for a couple of hours followed by a very nice bike ride back to Mystic Springs.
