bookends - tales "from the sea"

    We were doing our normal SSC mission off the coast of Acapuco during our Legal Ops in the summer of 1992.  Just me and the two guys up front in our mighty SH-2F out of HSL-37.  It was a cavu day and we were all just taking it in, the blue sky and almost glass water.  I was sitting in the door (as usual) on that beautiful flight when I spotted something white in the water amongest all that blue.  I vectored the pilot over to the object and we decended from 2k down to about 200.  Doing about 80-90 knots we were about 1 mile out and we still could not make out what it was.  It was stationary and there was none of the tell tale signs of someone in the water thrashing about.  We got closer to is and low and behold it was a bird. A BIG BIRD.  White in color and very big.  Well all this sound normal and reasonable right?  I mean a bird in the water is something all of us have seen right.  Well the only thing was when we past the bird the pilot said to me, "hey benny, did you see what I saw".  And i came back with "I sure as hell did".  The immense oddity about this big bird was that it was not IN the water but rather Standing on the water.  We did our pass and the pilot took it around for another look see this time low and slow.  when we got with in rotor wash distance, this immense bird opened its huge wings an d just floated away on our wash.  Now with the bird gone we got the whole story.  This bird was not standing on the water but rather standing on the back of a sea turtle that was in the water. You talk about luck for this bird that the turtle was there... 

        As all great stories in naval aviation begin with the “there I was,  and this is no Sh@#!”, I feel this story would be  a gross understatement to that kind of beginning.
        So, there we were, the first LAMPS detachment to deploy with night vision goggles, winding up our highly successful tour in the Arabian gulf. It was 10 days before Christmas and our last flight before pulling into Bahrain and conducting a turnover with the incoming LAMPS det  and then heading to Thailand for a long overdue liberty call on New Years eve.
        We had been flying together as a crew for almost a year.  We were a very cohesive and tight crew.  The brief and preflight were uneventful, even cheerful  at times due to our imminent departure from the gulf. We discussed during the brief the lighting conditions for the night hop and it was correct, “starlight” only tonight.  No moonlight and just enough ambient light from the stars to provide a visible horizon using the NVGs.  Prior to takeoff  we donned our goggles, went through the last minute adjustments to them and off into the moon less night we went. It was DARK . Period. After a quick surface search with our radar, it was apparent that it was very quiet for shipping traffic that night. Sounds like a great time to breakout the Christmas cookies!
        The HAC (aircraft commander) was sitting in the right seat and broke out the cookies his sister had sent him. “Chief!, you want some cookies too”? As I was sitting in the Center seat, the HAC just tossed them back to me in the glad bag they came in. We were now fat, dumb and truly happy, even if it was the darkest night of the cruise.
        Things were progressing smoothly during the flight as we ate cookies and discussed our upcoming liberty port and the occasional comment “geez, it may be dark tonight, but it's nice to have the goggles to see the horizon”  Then  all of a sudden, the HAC yelled back to me “Chief!, toss that bag of cookies up here”!! I have to take a SH#! ....NOW!!!!”  for a couple of seconds I was confused as to what he REALLY meant.  As I tossed the cookies back to him, I said “Geez., if you wanted the cookies that bad, just say so and I’ll give ‘em to you. Well, as soon as he caught the bag of cookies, the HAC  IMMEDIATELY threw them back at me and screamed  “NOT WITH THE COOKIES IN THEM!” All of a sudden we realized that he REALLY  had to go in a bad way. His “Bowel Hi Pres caution light” was on and continuous, with intermittent secondary indications!
        I crawled up towards the cockpit, leaning on the center console just to actually verify it was happening, and it was. The PAC (pilot at the controls) in the left seat was laughing hysterically and I soon joined him.  For just a second, I had this flash that this is going to be one of the all time great sea stories or an Approach article explaining why this seasoned SH-60B Seahawk crew flew it into the water. Between the hysterical gut wrenching laughter, the ACT started to work in as well. I briefly tapped the PAC and told him, “whatever you do,  don’t crash us and gimme 500’, RADALT hold on ok?”
        The HAC was scrambling for ANY loose article in the cockpit that would relieve his “Bowel Hi Pres” caution light.  The little glad bag didn’t work, coke can....too small. AH! A coffee cup!
         Here we are: It’s night, we are in the gulf, wearing NVGs, the HAC is in immediate danger of the “Bowel Hi Pres” caution light exploding and we are laughing uncontrollably.   With T-minus 15 seconds before the weapon released, the HAC took his SV-2 off and  in the heat of battle it got caught on the collective for just a second.  The PAC could feel the weight on the flight controls and at the same  moment I quickly reached up and yanked the SV-2 off the collective and kept it out of the line of fire  and yelled “you’re clear!”  By now, he had his flight suit down around the knees,  helmet on with NVGs, squatting on the seat getting ready for the big weapon release point into the coffee cup. It looked like a perverted scene out of some low budget sci-fi movie..  Unfortunately, the HAC didn’t account for the drift, and the weapon was off target by 50%.
        All this time, I’m looking over at the PAC (left seat) backing him up on the altitude/ airspeed and making SURE the RAD ALT (Radar Altimeter) hold was on. Well, after several loud sighs of relief from the HAC and SEVERAL loud hoots of laughter from us, it was over. We all cleaned ourselves up, some more than others, then pulled into a hover and gave Davey Jones a nice present in the form of a coffee cup. Total time from ops normal to Weapons Release? 3 minutes.
        As we got back up to altitude,  and between the diminishing chuckles and occasional burst of laughter we asked if he was all right and wanted to go back to the ship, but most importantly, “What brought THAT on”? Well, after  completing  Naval Aviation’s largest bottom blow in history, the HAC said he felt fine, matter of fact he felt MUCH better. We decided to continue on with the flight. Every few minutes we would ask him again...”Are you  SURE you’re OK”? Replies such as “I’m fine”, “I feel alot better now” and  “Gee, that was weird wasn’t it” were the remarks from the HAC.   As the laughter diminished and we settled back into the routine ......it happened again! This time the “Bowel Hi Pres” caution light came on, AND STAYED ON WITH SECONDARY INDICATIONS!! His pressure gage was pegged in the red and was going to stay there.  This time we weren’t laughing, well, sort of.
        We had already used up the last of the loose articles and I was frantically scrambling for something else to give him.  The ACT lessons learned from the last episode became automatic for us. The PAC (left seat) automatically verbalized “ ok Chief,  I’m  wings level climbing to 500 ft, Rad Alt hold is on, airspeed is good.” we both double checked that the RAD ALT hold was on, and he stayed on the gages...most of the time.
        This time he went from Ops normal to Weapons Release in less than a minute.  The HAC once again had the vest off,  Helmet on with NVGs, flight suit down and was screaming for me to get him something.  As a last ditch effort, I took off my vest AND helmet, peeled my flight suit down and ripped my T-shirt from my chest and threw it up to the HAC. Is that dedication or what?  At that point I had this vision of the accident board trying to figure out why a Seahawk Crew crashed into the water, and the HAC and Senso were half naked! The PAC saw me crawl up towards the cockpit half naked throwing the T-shirt at the HAC and burst into laughter again.
        Here we are again: The HAC has got the Bowel Hi Pres light going on, I’m half naked and the PAC is laughing uncontrollably while I’m yelling at him to stay on the gages and fly the plane.  Bottom blow completed, and another addition to Davey Jones locker, we call it quits and head back to homeplate. Unbelievable.
        As we headed back to the ship, the general consensus was that the HAC was out of the picture and not going to touch the controls at all.  We discussed what might have caused the problem, was it the cookies that we ALL ate? Was it the water or even our gourmet gulf box lunches? Could this happen to us too? If it happened on approach to the ship what were we going to do? The pucker factor increased just a bit for us. As a last attempt to bail himself out of this embarrassing situation the HAC commented that he could have used that pucker factor a few minutes ago.
        I helped out with the landing checklist as well as the altitude/airspeed calls on approach and we made an uneventful landing to the Rast Trap  on the FFG. We swapped pilots , cleaned up as best we could and then flew the rest of the hop out.
        Some interesting points  were brought up about the hop. Should we have RTB after the first bottom blow? Definitely. Something like that warrants the attention of the doc.
        The  PAC did a great job of maintaining safety of the aircraft during extremis. He climbed in altitude, told everyone  what he was doing, verbalized several times “ok we are wings level, airspeed and altitude are good, rad alt hold is on”.  I was backing him up the whole time ensuring that we were doing what were supposed to be doing. We experienced several different types of flight regimes that night, under unusual circumstances and wearing NVGs, which was a definite plus for the safety factor. We had the luxury of seeing at night, the horizon, water, stars and well you know.....everything!

   I've been looking for a page like this for some time hoping to locate some of the guys I served with in HS-12 at NAS North Island from 1981 -'84.  The guest book had one name I recognized "AW1 Dave Wratchford" and a story in "Bookends" had one other  AWC(I knew him when he was promoted to a '1') James MacMaster.  I spent most of my 4 ½ years in the Navy with Dave, but only knew "Mac" a short time.  Dave is one of the sharpest AW's I ever met and Mac was the consummate 4.0 sailor.  When he made Chief, I think he was the youngest AWC in the Navy, and one of the youngest chiefs.  I'm not writing this as an 'atta-boy' for these two guys, but rather to relate and my experiences in HS-12, on my first cruise aboard the USS America, flying in SH-3H's that were older than me.

   My first cruise took me around the world, leaving from San Fran, traveling through the Suez Cannel, and putting in at Norfolk.  We spent most of the seven months at sea, only pulling into Perth for six days, Palma for 3 or 4, and Naples for a Week.  We had two steel beach picnics during that cruise, two Shellback initiations and one "BEER DAY."  Are those still done?  Anyway.....

   On one gorgeous day in the IO I was flying second crew on a plane guard hop with AW3 J.D. Kinser, LCDR Don Downing(HAC), and Ltjg Davison.  We had just finished a Launch & Recovery cycle, so we heading off to the cruiser California for some small deck landing quals.  We had about 20 minutes or so to kill before the next cycle and our pilots and the "Cal" both needed the quals, so it seemed like a great time to do it, besides, as any carrier based helo guy will tell you, the small boys have the best box lunches and coldest sodas in the fleet.  JD and I were taking turns calling the approach from the cargo door and we had done 3 or 4 landings.  Cal was turned into the wind and we were on another "by the books approach."

   JD was in the door, ready to call the deck, our rotorblades were already over the nets, when we suddenly heard a loud "whir" from somewhere overhead followed by a loud "bang."  Don Downing was either making the approach or took over immediately and aborted the landing.  I was in the troop seat and I felt the tail of the helo start to kick around as Don pulled power and nosed our pig over.  I loved flying in the Sea Hawks, but Sikorsky should have named them the Sea Cow or Pig since there was nothing hawkish about them.

   Anyway, Don quickly realized that we were too low and too slow to fly out of this with no apparent tail rotor, so we started to head for the water as the "Cal" steamed away.  I could tell we were going down and braced for the impact as I saw the Cal flash past the Cargo door 2 or 3 more times before we hit the water.  JD fell back against the reeling machine and was holding on to the housing as we whipped around.  The last thing I heard over the ICS was LCMDR Downing's "OH SHIT!" just before we hit water.  We landed flat on or belly with a loud "thwap" and for a moment, we sat there with our rotor turning. Then we dropped down into the next trough and the rotors bit into the side of the next swell.  The helo jerked hard to port and one of the blades promptly lopped off our tail.  The helo shook hard for a few seconds then it rolled smoothly over onto the port side.  It stayed this way only a moment until the water started coming and then it rolled keel up.

   I had unstrapped while we were on our side and  as we continued to rollover, I walked with it until I was standing on the overhead.  The water started filling the cargo area fast and was up to my knees in seconds.  I was wearing my helmet, a T-shirt, SAR shorts, my sling, BC & booties.  I looked briefly for my para-bag and helmet bag, but couldn't find them.  I unbuckled the strap on our 7-man raft and tossed it out the door and I jumped out after it.  Unfortunately, I had forgotten to unplug from the ICS and my pig tail didn't pop apart.  Under normal circumstances, I would have been fighting with the damn thing to keep it attached.  Anyway, my head was jerked back and my chin strap slipped down on my throat.  I reached back for the pig tail and after one try to unhooked it, I popped the chin strap and my helmet was snatched off by the cord.  JD was still in the door, strapped in by his gunner's belt and I started telling him to get out of the helo.  JD never did anything in a hurry and he unbuckled and swam out like it was something he'd done a 1000 times.  I think he was suffering mild shock, but he always moved like that so I couldn't say for certain.  The raft was floating low in the water and when I finally found the handle and pulled it, nothing happened. Most of the pins came out but the raft didn't inflate.  I pulled out the rest of the pins and got the raft partially open.  Then I kicked away from the raft to get the slack out of the wire and gave the handle another pull and it started to inflate.  Me, JD and Don were at the raft when it started to inflate.  They hung onto the sides and I got in. From there I could see Davison swimming around the nose of the bird using his helmet for flotation.

   As many of you know, the toggles on the old survival gear wear very hard to find and I don't think any of our crew was able to find them to inflate their vest.  Shortly after this the Navy changed the toggle into a beaded handle, which were a lot easier to find.

   When Davison got to the raft I was able to pull him, but Don's back was hurting so he didn't try to get in the raft.  Besides, he is a big man and I'm not sure Davison and I could have gotten him in.  JD was also content to just hang onto the side.  The helo was floating upside with to sponson bags inflated and about 90% underwater, we were all safe and without serious injury, so we started looking for a ride home.  We knew every bird in our squadron would be on the way and when we looked around, our CO's bird was on approach to our position.  We gave him a thumbs up and started waving him in.  But he was slowing into a  40 foot hover about a 100 or so yards away.  I turned to my left and discovered the reason why.  The Cal had done a quick 180 and was only about 100 yards away closing fast.  They steamed right up along side the raft and started throwing down ropes.  We couldn't hold onto the first one, but Davison and I were able to catch the second and tie it onto the raft. They dropped a ladder over the side which reached to the water and the four of us climbed onboard.  For some reason, a helo wasn't allowed to land that day so we ended up speeding the night on the Cal in the infirmary.  They fed us in the officer's mess and treated us great, but we were anxious to get back to  America.  We had to tell the story about the crash about a million times, including a formal investigation. There was no doubt we suffered a mechanical malfunction, probably in the intermediate or tail gear box.  Several guys on the Cal reported that they saw it stop turning suddenly.  The helo was never recovered because it sank in over a 1000 fathoms when the Cal ran over it picking us up. My chief told me I could take some time before getting back on a flight, but suggested that I not wait so I didn't.  I was flying again as soon as I could get new gear, about 3 days.  That was some of the best advice I ever got from AWC Williams.  Our paraloft guy gave me crap for losing my helmet in the crash because I took it off.  I told him to bite me.

   The crash has been a great story to tell at parties throughout the years, but I realize how lucky we all were to get out of it alive, let alone unharmed.  I give a lot of the credit for or successful ditch to Don's quick thinking.  If he had followed his instincts and continued to try to fly the bird rather than ditch, there's no telling how we would have hit the water.  He was a very experienced HAC with 1000's of flight hours including combat time in HAL 5 during Viet Nam.

   To all you current & past "FAW's" out there like myself, who think an auto-rotation is better than any ride that Disney ever built, I send my best wishes.  Hope you enjoyed the story and that you never have to tell one of your own like this.

Former AW2(civ), AC, SAR, HS-10, HS-12
America and the last cruise of the Coral Sea
Norman Lang Jr.

  Charles Plum, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, was a jet fighter pilot in Vietnam.  After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile.  Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands.   He was captured and spent six years in a Communist prison.  He survived that ordeal and now lectures about lessons learned from that experience.

  One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, "You're Plumb!  You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk.  You were shot down!" "How in the world did you know that?" asked Plumb.

  "I packed your parachute," the man replied.

  Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude.  The man pumped his hand and said, "I guess it worked!"

  Plumb assured him, "It sure did-if your chute hadn't worked, I wouldn't be here today."

  Plumb couldn't sleep that night, thinking about that man.  Plumb says, "I kept wondering what he might have looked like in a Navy uniform-a Dixie cup hat, a bib in the back, and bell bottom trousers. I wondered how many times I might have passed him on the Kitty Hawk. I wondered how many times I might have seen him and not even said 'Good morning, how are you,' or anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor."

  Plumb thought of the many hours the sailor had spent on a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn't know.

  Now, Plumb asks his audience, "Who's packing your parachute?  Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it through the day." Plumb also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down over enemy territory-he needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional parachute, and his spiritual parachute.  He called on all these supports before reaching safety.  His experience reminds us all to prepare ourselves to weather whatever storms lie ahead.

  SUGGESTION: Recognize and be gracious to people who pack your parachute, and strengthen yourself to prevail through tough times.

        In April 92, I reported to VP-22 from the RAG (31), and was assigned to CAC-8. As usual, the first few days were spent checking into the squadron and the usual hoops that you have to jump through. Eventually, we were put on the flight schedule for bounce hops and pilot trainers, so I was getting excited again. After a couple weeks or so, I had my first crew flight, it was a tac trainer at night, and I was teamed to fly with AW3 Troy Stoddard (Stump) as my PQS signer.
        The mission was to work with a sub against a small boy off of Hawaii, and after a few hours, Stump headed into the galley for dinner, and I was finally doing tac work unchaperoned. A few minutes later, my radar (APS-115) started intermittent spoking, and the ESM (ALQ-78) started spitting out a strange set of parameters, wanting to show that I knew what I was doing, I broke out the param books and IDed it as a sub based jamming system. Actually, a few of the numbers were slightly off, but I reasoned that this was simply a case of bad info (like the stories our instructors told us about in school). I called up the TACCO, and told him that I had located our playmate, and that they were attempting to jam us. Of course, the TACCO's first question was along the lines of "Why the hell would they be jamming us, if we're supposed to be working WITH them?". A few moments later, the spoking stopped, my radar was back to normal, and the 78 was just putting out the usual commercial junk.
        Stump came back so I could grab something to eat, and I didn't tell him about the jamming, figuring that he would notice it. I ate and went back to the station, and took over from Stump. After a few minutes, the spoking returned and I was getting ESM hits again...I called the TACCO and reported it to him, he again questioned me about the situation, and the radar soon returned to normal. Eventually, things were starting to come together, and I had been "jammed" about 3 or 4 more times, when finally the whole system went green, and I was getting a bit more intense with the Tacco and the PPC
who had joined in by this time, the SS1 & 2 were quietly watching all of this. The ORD Scott White (Scotty/Whitey) went back and grabbed Stump, who came up wondering what I was blabbering about, I explained about the jamming, and he looked at the screen, walked forward in the tube a bit, reset a couple switches, and the jamming stopped.
        I heard a series of clicks, in between which Stump would say "yer being jammed, You're not being jammed, you're being jammed, etc). In the excitement of flying with my crew, I had overlooked an obvious eqpmt malfunction, and immediately diagnosed a faulty RIU as jamming (due in no small part to RAG instructors using the same method to simulate jamming in the trainers).
        When I made it into the shop the next morning, there was a caricature (very badly drawn by AW2 Tom Schrader) of me screaming to the TACCO while hunched over the scope, and the story was rapidly spreading through the rest of the squadron. For the rest of my time at 22, and my short time in the Reserves, I was known as "Jammer", proof that you can't run away from notoriety.
 

                                                        Mark Kaplan
                                                        AW2 (SS-3)
                                                         VP-22/94

WHERE DID THAT BULLET HOLE COME FROM??

    As an Aircrewman in HS-3, I was deployed aboard USS Theodore Roosevelt during the "bombing campaign" in Bosnia. We had airstrikes going in around the clock. We were the Back-up CSAR asset (The Air Force  was the primary when they weren't on crew rest or something...). A french two seater had been shot down about a week earlier while conducting a strike. Through a variety of questionable sources, we (the intel weenies actually) had determined where these guys were supposed to be. When the decision was made to attempt a pickup, it was the worst possible night to do it! No moon, driving rain and completely overcast (low level). As fate would have it, the Air Force waved the bullshit flag on it and the buck was passed to us! Packed with our SEALs, M-60's and enough other stuff to completely fill the cabins to capacity. We took off and headed towards the coast. Our escort "package took off later and joined up.
    Heading in low above the water, our NVG's were working hard as we tried to take advantage of the near total darkness. About 10 miles out we conducted weapons checks and found that two of our door guns were malfunctioning (luckily, the second spare worked and we had two up weapons just 3 miles from the beach). We flew in low and fast through a small inlet intently watching the few lights that were still lit along the shore (it was about 2:30 in the morning). Reaching the shoreline, our aircraft abruptly banked up and over the first small ridgeline (A "Bunt" in Helo terms). The cold rain felt like buckshot in the face as we followed the terrain, avoiding any signs of populated areas. After about 10 minutes we learned our escort ("Rescort") had to turn back due to weather. We were now on our own, 15 miles into "bad guy country" and continuing... Soon the ceiling had dropped so low that we could not determine where the peaks of the NUMEROUS mountains and hillsides were. I kept "advising" that we turn around and not blindly proceed further, but the pilots were boresighted on the instruments and NVG picture, and for whatever reason, never acknowledged my ICS calls. We flew right into a cloud bank and the last thing we saw was mountain in front of us (not a good thing). About this time, "Dash-2" had quick stopped into a 360 and was heading away from the "goo". By the grace of god, we broke through the cloud and found ourselves descending into a long, dark valley.
    By now, I had more than enough and was pressing hard to abort and get the hell out! Everything was going very very wrong and we were now "alone" (we learned later that our wingman thought we'd plowed into the mountain side because all radio contact was lost). This was definitely NOT how we had planned things...So the HAC finally acknowledged my concerns and we turned back towards the coast (we were now about 35 miles into Indian Country), looking for some way out. The mission had been officially aborted with the loss of our "package"and it was time go home. I don't know the reasoning behind it (I have my suspicions) but we were wildly proceeding at max speed down every hillside and valley we could find pointing in the right direction. At one point our speed was easily over 155 knots and the M-60 and much of the ammo was blown right out of my hands after a particularly violent nose-over into a valley (for you non-helo types, the ammo box "holding system" is pretty shitty and does not prevent such a thing. We routinely improvised with generous applications of ordnance tape. The gun, while on a mount, is very difficult to control at speeds above 120 knots due to air flow over the
weapon). Life was sucking bad by now!. We were nowhere near where we planned to egress and were, by now, just trying to get back to the safety of the sea in one piece. Our SEAL squad was getting thrown around pretty good in the back but we were too concerned with avoiding wires and mountains (The law of gross tonnage was undeniable here, we would not survive an impact with either!).
    We finally broke out over the Adriatic and got a steer to mom. We were emotionally drained but elated to gain comms with Dash-2 again. We proceeded back to the ship at a sane speed, everyone silent for the remaining trip home. Upon landing, we shut down and did our postflight inspection. Two feet to the right of my head, a single small arms round had found it's mark, penetrating our internal fuel tank about mid way up, above the self sealing liner (the fuel had already been expended below this level by now) and re-entering the electronics compartment above, shredding a wire bundle and frame section, and finally, lodging a mere 3 feet from the Port gunners station. At the debrief, we learned that one of the SEALs recalled seeing small arms fire and hearing a brief "rattle" in the aft cabin area. Neither gunner saw it. This definitely ranked as THE most wild of rides in my 18 year career! Glad to have been there, even more glad it's over!!

AWC (AW/DV) Thomas Speer

        Fortress of Solitude
-------------------------------------
http://www.jacksonville.net/~tomspeer 

Up until a few years ago, when the high year tenure rules came into effect, we had quite a few old timers in the Naval Air Reserve.  By old timers I mean people with up to 40 years in the Navy Reserve.  People who used to fly Martin Mariners, Convair Privateers, and Lockheed Neptunes.  Unfortunately, these people are for the most part gone but I was lucky enough to fly with a number of them before the Navy Reserve threw them all out en-mass.  During that time I got to hear some very interesting stories of how the Naval Air Reserve used to be in the old days.

Apparently the Naval Air Reserve operated quite differently 30 or 40 years ago.  In many respects the Naval Air Reserve was a much more formal organization.  There certainly was a greater bridge between officers and enlisted people.  Apparently when an officer said 'jump' in the old days you jumped.  In other ways, however, the Naval Air Reserve was extremely disorganized.  I have been told that pilots who needed flight time would often just grab whoever they could find lounging around the hanger to act as observers no matter if they were designated aircrewmen or not!  I gather that it was much more fun to be associated with the Naval Air Reserve back 30 or 40 years ago than it is today.  The old timers used to refer to the Naval Air Reserve as the 'Neptune Flying Club'!

An old timer chief once told me that in the old days the Naval Air Reserve used to get all the oldest, most worn out hand-me-down aircraft from the fleet.  He said that around 1960 NAS South Weymouth used to have a couple of very old model P2 Neptunes which still had nose gun turrets installed. According to this chief, there were no longer any guns in these turrets but one of the crewman's duties when assigned to fly one of these things was to make sure that a pair of black painted broom handles on board.  He told me that the broom handles were pushed through the gun ports in flight (and
braced in place by a crewmans' legs) so the pilots could fly up alongside civilian airliners and turn the 'guns' on the passengers.  I'm sure that was good for a ton of laughs!

Another old time Naval Air Reserve trick I heard about was to pull up alongside a civilian airliner in a later model P2 Neptune fitted with auxilliary jet pods, feather the two reciprocating engines, and then accelerate ahead of the airliner on the jets.  I was told that this trick was always guaranteed to get everyone on the airliner pressed to the windows with wide eyes!

Somebody once told me about a pilot who was assigned to a reserve unit at NAS South Weymouth during the 1960s who operated an air charter service on Cape Cod as his civilian job.  During the summer months his weekend Naval Air Reserve patrols would often go no further than Martha's Vineyard or Nantucket Island.  The P2 Neptune would be parked out of sight at the civilian airfield, the aircrew got the pilot's car so they could go to the beach, and the pilot would spend the day flying tourists around Cape Cod in his charter aircraft.  At the end of the day the pilot and crew would meet at the P2 and head back to NAS South Weymouth.  This crew never got any contact of course!

I understand that the old P2s had a 'relief tube' system that certain members of the crew could piss into without leaving their stations. Apparently the rear observers (who had hatches they could open...the P2 Neptune was unpressurized) could put their relief tube orifaces in the slipstream and force a jet of urine into the flight station!

Another Naval Air Reserve old timer told me that the Julie echo location system was named after a barmaid who worked near the Naval Air R&D facility at NAS Warminster, Pa!

I think that's about it for today.

Marc 'Frat' Frattasio
P3B/C EWO
VP-8 Crew 4 1980 - 1983
VP-MAU Crew 1 1984 - 1990
VP-92 Crew 1 1990 - Present

Thought I'd let you know the rating history as I know it.  Originally the sensor operators on ASW aircraft (P-2, P-5, S-2, H-3) were AT's andboth operated and fixed their equipment. Unfortunately, maintenancedictated the real tasking of the operator, forcing the ATs to do morefixing than training, resulting in less than good sensor operators.  The AX rating resulted in the Navy deciding that there would be an operatorwho would operate and fix only the ASW systems.  Again, the MaintenanceDepartment took over and the AX became a fixer, resulting in not goodoperators.  In the late 60's, the AW rating was formed.  In the rating structure, the AW was specifically designated a "Non-Maintenance"rating, with no assignment to the Maintenance Department.  Since then, the AWs have had the constant battle with Maintenance.
 BUPERS NOTE 1440 OF 5 AUGUST 1968 ANNOUNCING THE AW RATE

Back in Patrol Squadron 8 in the early 1980s we had an AW2, who we shall call 'Sam' (not his real name) who was known as a 'party animal'.  Sam was a good guy and we all liked him. For some reason, he was temporarily assigned to my crew, Crew 4, as Sensor One.

In those days, we did split Rota/Lajes deployments with each crew spending half its deployment at each site.  On the day we were scheduled to go from Rota to Lajes, Sam could not be found anywhere.  After searching the barracks, hangar, you name it, we finally had to give up and preflight the aircraft.  Since Sam was known to drink heavily and keep drunkard's hours, people chalked it off to a late night party and made preparations to write him up for 'missing movement' or some such thing.

We loaded our baggage into the bomb bay racks to make room in the aircraft for parts and stuff for Lajes and preflighted the aircraft.  At the appointed time the bomb bay doors came up and we got ready to go without Sam.  During the taxi out to the runway, somebody was checking the tube and heard tapping coming from the bomb bay.  The crewman opened the floor hatch and turned on the bomb bay light.  What do you suppose he saw through the peephole's fish eye lense?  There wasSam's terrified eye staring back at him!

We went back to the hangar, shut down the engines, and opened the bomb bay doors.  Sam almost fell out, he was so completely terrified!  It turned out that Sam had been out late and had tried to sneak on to the aircraft during the final preflight checks.  He crept up into the bomb bay without alerting anyone to his presence and was in the rack securing his bags when the doors came up.

I can't for the life of me remember what they ended up doing to Sam but I do not think he got busted for it.

Marc 'Frat' Frattasio, P3B/C EWO
VP-8 Crew 4 1980 - 1983
VP-MAU Crew 1 1984 - 1990
VP-92 Crew 1 1990 - 1999

This is my first sea story but I can guarantee you that it will not be my last.  This AW sea story page is a great idea.

I was a new Sensor Station 3 Operator in Patrol Squadron 8 during the unit's last Med deployment prior to VP-8's transition from P3Bs to P3Cs.  I literally went from the RAG to an aircrew flying operational Cold War patrols in the Mediterranean Sea in the space of about four weeks.  It was quite an experience for an 18 year old kid.

Anyway, my new crew's long overnight transit from NAS Brunswick, Maine to NAS Rota, Spain was at extremely high altitude.  Everyone back in the tube was asleep, probably as much from lack of oxygen as from exhaustion, and everyone in the flight station was on oxygen.  At some point, I got up to take a leak.  I passed out from lack of oxygen just after I finished peeing.  When I came to, I was crumpled up on the floor of the head and extremely groggy.  All the lights were out in the tube as I worked my way back to the SS3 station.  I sat down in my seat, lay my head down on the console, and went back to sleep.

About an hour or so away from Rota, I woke up with a whopper of a headache. I shook the sleeping navigator, LTJG Terry Walker, and told him that I felt terrible.  LTJG Walker turned on a spot light which revealed that my face was covered in blood!  He shrieked and announced on the ICS that I was bleeding to death.  I was brought forward to the flight station and put on oxygen while the pilots declared an emergency and requested an ambulance to await the aircraft upon arrival at Rota.

Once my crewmates started treating me, it became apparent that I was not bleeding to death after all.  What had happened is that my face had hit the metal urinal when I passed out in the head and this had given me a pair of cuts on my eyebrows.  In the low pressure, I bled more profusely than I would have under other circumstances but it was just capillary bleeding.  It
was really no worse than a couple of bad shaving cuts.

Still, a Navy ambulance was waiting for me when we touched down at NAS Rota an hour or so later and every big shot in the squadron was waiting on the ramp to see me.  I remember our Commanding Officer, CDR Norwood, fighting his way to the front of the crowd at the 'receiving line' to speak to me.  They all said things like, 'how are you doing Airman Frattasio', etc.  And I responded 'I'm OK'.  I was taken to the base clinic where I got a few stitches and that was it.

When I got to the barracks, there was a note on my bed instructing me to report to Senior Chief Lashbrook, the Command Senior Chief, as soon as possible.  Another official display of concern?  Nope.  It turned out that the a number of observing poo-bahs were upset that I did not use the word 'sir' when I spoke to CDR Norwood as they carried me off the airplane and
put me on a stretcher!

This story has a postscript.  I carried a prominent circular bruise on my face from the impact with the urinal opening for several days afterwards.  This resulted in my TACCO, LCDR Donald Fierce, getting the nickname 'Tire Tool', which he kept for the remainder of his 20 year Navy career.  The story was that I had given him some trouble on the flight over to Rota and he had to whack me with a tire iron to put me in line!

Marc 'Frat' Frattasio, P3B/C EWO
VP-8 Crew 4 'Four Gets More' 1980 - 1983
VP-MAU Crew 1 1984 - 1990
VP-92 Crew 1 1990 - present 

99 Hurricane Hunters Buster Mother
 

Michael Wise
former AW, SH-3H, SH-60F
HS-2/USS Kitty Hawk (1984-1987), HS-0246 (1987-1991)

October 19, 1985

³Smokes away.² I droned into the mike as I leaned out the door to watch the smoke smack the surface of the water. I don¹t know why, but I always liked watching the smokes and sonobuoys we dropped hit the water. In the crystal clear waters of the IO, you could see trail of air bubbles the smoke made as its downward velocity dropped it below the surface before its natural buoyancy brought it back up. This was all just another practice 10 & 10, on just another flight, on just another day in the IO.

We turned downwind to commence what at least started out to be a standard NATOPS textbook pattern to a 10 & 10. I assumed my position seated at the cargo door with my feet dangling out the door.. AWC James Macmaster grabbed the back of my rescue sling preparing to enter the rescue simulation. God-willing, we should never have to do a rescue, but all of us AW¹s secretly hoped we would get to do someday. Damn it, we were trained for it.

We turned upwind for the approach to the ³survivor.² The situation felt strange...we cut the pattern way short and were much closer to the survivor entering the upwind leg as we normally were. Oh well, I believed the pilots knew what they were doing. Hmmm, we sure were approaching the survivor much faster than we should have been. We¹re definitely going to overshoot the survivor by far on this 10 & 10, I thought to myself looking forward out the door at the floating smoke rapidly approaching.

We started the descent into the 10 & 10 about 50 yards from the smoke, while moving at about 75 kts at about 40 ft altitude. Obviously, the HAC realized he had messed up, and he pitched the nose up to bring the airspeed down, so as not to overshoot the smoke. We passed the 20 ft altitude mark still moving at least 30-40 kts almost right on top of the smoke and still pitched up.

The ocean surface seemed so close that I could kick it...but then again, it always seemed like that on 10 & 10¹s.
WHUMP
³I think we just smacked out tail wheel into the water.² I said over the ICS as I leaned further out the door to see if we had damaged our tail wheel. The HAC picked up some altitude while I was craning my neck trying to get a view on the tail wheel.
Sky and water
Sky and water
Sky and water
Out of the corner of my eye, the horizon seemed to be spinning.
BOOM
By the time I realized what had happened...that we it wasn¹t our tail wheel which had hit the water, but rather, our tail rotor...we had hit the water a second time...this time for good.

Ugghhhhhhhhhh!. God, it hurt. My lower back hurt so bad, I couldn¹t yell or cry or make much of any noise. All I could do was roll around on the cargo bay deck with my mouth opening and closing like a fish on dry land. Everything seemed to be happening at once. I could hear the sound of water coming into the helo from the tail pylon area. I could hear the pilots
screaming onto the radio ³Helo in the water! Hurricane Hunter 614 in the water!² I saw Chief Macmaster scampering to get back fully inside the helo. His gunners belt had a little too much slack and he had been thrown partially out of the helo and then yanked back against the edge of the door.

At this point, I entered shock and felt no more pain for awhile. We were upright in the water. Although I could hear water coming into the aircraft, we didn¹t seem to be sinking. The pilots had actuated the sponson bags, which seemed to be doing what they were designed to do. For some reason I felt this overwhelming need to get my rescue sling and BC off and my SV-2 on. I wanted to be wearing real water survival gear with real survival equipment. No matter how hard I tried, I could not seem to get my SV-2 on. In my state of shock, I wasn¹t being methodical. My fasteners were tangled, and I didn¹t realize it. Chief helped me get into my SV-2. Once I had it on, I felt much more at ease.

We were carrying a passenger. A Photog (PH2 Henderson) trying to make sure he would get his monthly flight pay. I remember him yelling: ³What the fuck¹s going on!² over and over. The chief turned to him and said something like ³We crashed, dammit...now shut up and do as your told!².

I was still connected to the ICS and I could here a flood of radio traffic intermixed with the pilots going through an emergency shut down check list. ³99 Hurricane Hunters, Buster Mother!² I heard the voice of the Air Boss say, which in Naval carrier aviation vernacular loosely translates to ³All HS-2 helos get your asses back to the carrier NOW.²

I helped the chief get the life raft unfastened, and he somehow got it inflated right outside the cargo bay door. ³Get in!² he yelled at the photog and me. I got in first followed by the photog and then the chief. So there we were, floating right next to the aircraft. Everything seemed so quite and peaceful. I looked back at the tail rotor area, and saw there was no longer a tail rotor...or a tail gear box for that matter. I looked over at the photog, and said ³Hey, you should take some pictures of this.² He had been able to get his entire camera bag with him into the life raft dry and undamaged. He just gave me this frightened look and did nothing.

Right about this time, the tail of the helo dropped below the surface and the helo looked as is it was going to go sinker. The pilots were still strapped in their seats. I¹m sure all of us in the life raft were wondering the same thing to ourselves as we looked at the front of the aircraft...²What are they waiting for?!²

The aircraft was now starting to slide below the surface tail low and gradually rolling starboard. The right seat pilot jumped out his window and made his way towards the life raft. There was a loud hiss and huge clouds of steam as the engines met the surface of the water. By this time, the aircraft was pitched up 45 degrees and now on its side. The entire rear 1/3
of the aircraft was below the surface of the water. The aircraft continued rolling starboard, and the left seat pilot climbed out of his window just seconds before it slipped below the surface. Finally, all five of us were in the life raft.

The aircraft had stopped sinking for the moment, and was now upside down with only the tip of the nose and a few rotor blades poking up out of the water. Those sponson bags were really doing their only and final duty quite well.

We saw our home, the USS Kitty Hawk about 1-2 miles away steaming towards us. Two other SH-3H¹s from our squadron were also approaching rapidly from various points on the horizon. I was still in shock and had almost forgotten about the pain I had felt on impact. The Kitty Hawk motored in fairly close to us (damn, she looked big when you were floating on the
surface of the water next to her). There seemed to be a thousand people on the flight deck trying to catch a glimpse of the action. Then a voice came over the ship¹s loudspeaker ³Raise your hands if you¹re OK!² We all raised our hands, and we could hear the people on the flight deck cheering.

One of the helos pulled into a hover near us and started lowering a swimmer down. Chief looked at me and said ³You¹re the most injured, so you¹re going up first.² He then pushed me out of the life raft into the ocean. At 83 degrees, the ocean felt like bath water. The rescue swimmer, AW3 Bill Barstad, swam up to me and said ³Are you OK, Mike?² I said that I thought I had hurt my back. I thought we would single for a rescue litter, but the next thing I knew I was attached to the rescue hook and Bill was giving the uphoist signal. I was now on my way up to the rescue helo. I looked down and say Bill swimming over towards the life raft. I saw a long shadow swim right behind him about 20 ft below the surface of the water. Then I saw
several more shadows below the surface. It took me a few seconds to realize that there was a school of hammerhead sharks swimming all around the crash area. They were swimming well below the surface, so none of us in the life raft had seem them.

AW2 Terrance Moore was the first crewman in the rescue helo that pulled me out. As I neared the door, he pulled me in and laid me down. I plugged myself into the ICS, so I could hear what was going on. I heard Terry say ³...yeah, he¹s OK.² Then I felt another overwhelming wave of pain shoot up my spinal cord and started doing my fish on dry l and routine again. ³We
need to get him back to the ship now!² Terry yelled into the ICS.

The rest is a blur, we landed on mother where there were scores of medical people waiting for us. I was placed on a rescue litter and quickly carried over to some sort of elevator I never knew existed mid-deck. We came out of the elevator somewhere near mess deck level. I was fading in and out of consciousness as the crew of people carrying my rescue litter ran down the passageways towards medical. We entered what appeared to be some sort of surgery room, where there were doctors already waiting in full surgical gear. I was now scared. I didn¹t know what the extent of my injuries were, and if they would have to cut me open. The surgeons cut off the t-shirt and shorts I had been wearing under the rescue swimmer gear I had on at the time of the crash. I think I passed out around this time.

I woke up in the ships medical ward with a plastic tube snaked up my nose and down my throat to my stomach. They did this to drain all the food I had recently eaten out of my stomach, because my spinal injury and resultant shock had shut down my digestive process. There was also an IV drip in my wrist. A flight surgeon (I can¹t remember his name but he was with VF-24 and everybody called him ³Fighter Doc²) was standing next to me reading some charts. He saw I was awake and started cracking jokes trying to cheer me up. ³Where you can you find Hurricane Hunter 614?² he asked. ³In the yellow pages under water² he answered himself chuckling. He said I had sustained a compression fracture to the L1 lumbar in my vertebrae. ³You¹re going to be here a while, so you may as well get some rest. Don¹t worry about the pain, we¹ve got a fridge full of Demerol for you² he joked.

The other four crewman were all rescued by one of the ships motor whale boats. The Air Boss had called all the rescue helos away, because he figured their noise was attracting the sharks. I am told by other AW¹s in my unit, that they sent out a team of SAR swimmers and EOD guys to try to hook a giant strop around the helo¹s rotor head to crane it out of the water with the ship¹s crane...but that before they made it to the helo, one of the sponson bags popped and the helo went sinker in several thousands of feet of water. I am also told that the school of sharks attacked the life raft long after everybody had been rescued.

I ended up being in the ships hospital for about a month and was off flight status for about 6 months. Even though it was twelve years ago, I can still feel an ache in my lower spine if I sit in the same position for more than a few hours.

There was a big JAG investigation into the cause of the crash. I won¹t get into that in very much detail here, but suffice it to say, the true cause was covered up...not by the pilot at the controls (who shall go nameless), but by direct influence of our squadron CO, who personally came to visit me in the medical ward and told me, a frightened nugget AW3, that it would be in my best interest to tell the JAG investigators the crash was caused by mechanical failure. I did just that, so perhaps that makes me as guilty as any.

I and four other people survived this one. A good friend and fellow HS-2 squadron mate of mine, Billy Quinn (RIP), did not walk away from the pilot error mishap he was in years later.

Lessons learned for those of you still on active duty flight status:
1) Never be afraid to speak up when you feel a pilot is flying beyond his means.
2) Never be afraid to speak up when you don¹t feel safe in the air.
3) Don¹t be afraid to tell the pilot at the controls when he is deviating from flight SOP
4) The greatest potential for a pilot error mishap is with a newly designated HAC flying with a JO. The senior pilots know their and their aircraft¹s limitations. The JO nuggets are usually too scared to try any sort of deviation from NATOPS. The new HAC, however, has just enough flight experience to get cocky and want to show the nugget how helos are flown in ³the real Navy.² Be extra vigilant when flying with new HACs.

Michael Wise

Dear Chief,
I stumbled upon your web site, having recently become a computer wonk.
I was an AW, starting AW"A" school in November or so of 1972. Went to HS-4 via HS-10, flew with the legendary Chief Hatchell (hard but fair) and rubbed elbows with some very fine individuals.I got out in 1976, went to college, then on to other interesting but sedate (compared to Naval Aviation!) work. I may have been the only rescue swimmer who didn't know how to swim when I got HS orders.Whoever the Chief in charge at Millington was, in his infinite wisdom he said "we'll teach you, if you want to learn". They did. I even flunked out of swim school once, but the Navy did not give up on me, and turned me into a fish, even to this day.I graduated from the school next time around.  I can't pass a body of water without trying to do a 10 and 10 into it. It was kind of odd being around for the end of the Vietnam period, a lot of "taint war, "taint peace". Oh well. I have many fond memories, some sad ones, and am delighted that someone is taking the time to put this stuff together.
Howdy to all AW's young and old. What's with the swimmer stuff on the wings on the web page, has the Navy finally given the rescue swimmer a little recognition?

Sincerely,
Jeff Manthos at jeffmanthos@sprintmail.com

I was an AW and SS-3 on crew 4 at the time.

Our squadron, VP-50 (P3-C), was on deployment in Misawa during 1976/77.  We had been there for some 4 months and it was time for a few R&R runs down to NAS Cubi Pt. in the Philippines.  My crew lucked out and was assigned to take
the first load.  Every available seat on the plane was filled as we headed out.
Well, the run from Misawa to Cubi is a long one and the container in the head for catching urine is a small one.  It is not designed to handle the needs of more than a twelve man crew during such a long transit.  We had twenty eight
people aboard.
Eventually, about half the way there, someone noticed that the "pisser" was full.  We still had a long way to go and the squadron custom was that, if you were the first to use the solid waste tank in the head, you had to clean the
tank and buy the crew a case of beer.  Nobody wanted to be cleaning toilets during their liberty time so they all decided to wait out the flight.
After two more hours, there were several people crossing their legs and groaning every time we bumped over the slightest turbulence.  That was when our brilliant ordinance man got an inspiration from God.  It was usually his duty to vacuum out the plane using the cabin pressure powered vacuum attached to the overhead flare gun port.  He figured that he could use this system to solve the urine container dilemma.  All he had to do was remove the filter in the vacuum hose between the hose intake and the flare gun port exhaust and he could vacuum all the urine out of the container.
He recruited one of the highly motivated and leg crossed customers to help him drag the overflowing pisser over near the flare gun port.  He then hooked up the unfiltered portion of the vacuum hose.  We were at an altitude of 20,000 feet and the hose had plenty of suction.  He stuck the end of the hose into the vat of urine and the water level started to drop immediately.
His idea appeared to be working perfectly at first.  You could clearly hear strange sucking noises from the vacuum hose as it filled with urine and you could see hope building on the faces of those who were aching to refill the
urine container.
Just then it happened.  The weight of all that urine filling the vacuum hose overcame the power of the air pressure which normally keeps it locked in place in the flare gun port.  The hose became disconnected and fell to the deck.  Urine splashed and sprayed everywhere.  The ordinance man and his assistant were soaked.  Other people sleeping in nearby jumpseats were rudely awakened.  When they discovered the source of the strange liquid that splashed and woke them, they became very angry.
The final two hours of that flight were the longest I have ever lived.  That plane stank.  When we landed, the pilot made the ordinance man and his assistant clean that plane for five hours.  They were ripping out and cleaning under equipment, behind life rafts and down in the hydraulic service center.  They mopped and scrubbed and polished every possible nook and
cranny.  That plane never did smell quite so good again.  Soon after the end of our deployment it became the permanent "Hangar Queen."