Good Sunday Morning
I hope that you all having a great weekend.
I went through a busy week last week ending up in the hospital a number of times but I believe that they are well on the way to fixing the final piece to this puzzle. They cured the C-dif and the operation to fix the bladder and colon problem has been operating well. The last thing was the large hematoma ( that I called Mount Vesuvius) that grew underneath my navel around the major entry point of the operation itself which I discovered 48 hours after the operation. Not to be to descriptive but when cleaned out Friday it would hold a golf ball. I am now hooked up to a 5 pound portable Vacuum pump which is hooked up to a tube that leads to the wound. The estimate is a couple of months and has to be changed out every M-W-F by the clinic with a new foam insert and tubing hook up. There is no pain associated with it but I have to be careful about not catching the tube on anything. So with about 64 days of the odyssey behind me I am hoping there is and end in sight and there will be no more interruptions to the List.
Thanks once again for all the good wishes and phone calls. I have tried to keep up with answering email and messages but you have overwhelmed me with good thoughts and prayers. I am forever grateful.
Regards
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Today in Naval History
August 2 2020
Today in Naval History
August 2
1865 CSS Shenandoah, commanded by James I. Waddell, encounters the British merchant bark, Barracouta, in the Pacific Ocean and receives the first firm report the Civil War ended in April with the defeat of the Confederacy. Shenandoah rounds Cape Horn in mid-September and arrives at Liverpool in early November, becoming the only Confederate Navy ship to circumnavigate the globe. There she hauls down the Confederate ensign and turns over to the Royal Navy.
1943 (PT 109), commanded by Lt. j.g. John F. Kennedy, is rammed by the Japanese destroyer, Amagiri, which cuts through the vessel at Blackett Strait near Kolombangara Island. Abandoning ship, Kennedy leads his men to swim to an island some miles away. With the aid of a Coastwatcher and local residents, they return to Rendova PT base on Aug. 8.
1944 While in action with the German submarine (U 804), USS Fiske (DE 143) is torpedoed mid-ship, breaks in two and sinks. Thirty of her crew members are lost with her.
1964 USS Maddox (DD 731) engages three North Vietnamese motor torpedo boats. In the resulting torpedo and gunfire, Maddox hit all the boats, while she was struck only by a single 14.5-millimeter machine gun bullet. Air support arrives from USS Ticonderoga (CVA 14) and her planes strafe the three boats. Both sides then disengage.
No CHINFO on the weekend
Today in History August 2
216 BC | Hannibal Barca wins his greatest victory over the Romans at Cannae. After avidly studying the tactics of Hannibal, Scipio Africanus eventually bested his Carthaginian adversary. | |
47 BC | Caesar defeats Pharnaces at Zela in Syria and declares, "veni, vidi, vici," (I came, I saw, I conquered). | |
1552 | The treaty of Passau gives religious freedom to Protestants living in Germany. | |
1553 | An invading French army is destroyed at the Battle of Marciano in Italy by an imperial army. | |
1589 | During France's religious war, a fanatical monk stabs King Henry II to death. | |
1776 | The Continental Congress, having decided unanimously to make the Declaration of Independence, affixes the signatures of the other delegates to the document. | |
1790 | The first US census begins enumerating the population. | |
1802 | Napoleon Bonaparte is proclaimed "Consul for Life" by the French Senate after a plebiscite from the French people. | |
1819 | The first parachute jump from a balloon is made by Charles Guille in New York City. | |
1832 | Troops under General Henry Atkinson massacre Sauk Indian men, women and children who are followers of Black Hawk at the Bad Axe River in Wisconsin. Black Hawk himself finally surrenders three weeks later, bringing the Black Hawk War to an end. | |
1847 | William A. Leidesdorff launches the first steam boat in San Francisco Bay. | |
1862 | Union General John Pope captures Orange Court House, Virginia. | |
1862 | The Army Ambulance Corps is established by Maj. Gen. George McClellan. | |
1876 | Wild Bill Hickok is shot while playing poker. | |
1914 | ||
1918 | A British force lands in Archangel, Russia, to support White Russian opposition to the Bolsheviks. | |
1923 | Vice President Calvin Coolidge becomes president upon the death of Warren G. Harding. | |
1934 | German President Paul von Hindenburg dies and Adolf Hitler becomes chancellor. | |
1943 | Lt. John F. Kennedy, towing an injured sailor, swims to a small island in the Solomon Islands. The night before, his boat, PT-109, had been split in half by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri. | |
1950 | The U.S. First Provisional Marine Brigade arrives in Korea from the United States. | |
1964 | U.S. destroyer Maddox is reportedly attacked by North Vietnamese patrol boats. | |
1965 | Newsman Morley Safer films the destruction of a Vietnamese village by U.S. Marines. | |
1990 | Iraqi forces invade neighboring Kuwait. | |
1997 | Author William S. Burroughs (Naked Lunch), considered the godfather of the "Beat Generation" in American literature, dies at age 83. |
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AMERICAN AEROSPACE EVENTS for August 2, 2020 FIRSTS, LASTS, AND SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENTS. THANKS TO HAROLD "PHIL" MYERS CHIEF HISTORIAN AIR FORCE INTELLIGENCE, SURVEILLANCE, AND RECONNAISSANCE AGENCY
August 2
1909: After tests at Fort Myer, the Army accepted the Wright Flyer as its first aircraft. The aircraft met and exceeded all specifications. (4) (12) (21)
1911: Harriet Quimby became the first woman pilot to get an FAI certificate in the United States. She received number 37 at Mineola. (24)
1918: The 135th Corps Observation Squadron sent 18 airplanes on patrol from an airdrome at Ourches, France, to make first patrol along the front by American-built DH-4s with Liberty engines. (20)
1922: Lt Leigh Wade, Capt Albert W. Stevens, and Sgt Roy Langham used a supercharged bomber to set an unofficial three-man altitude record of 23,350 feet over McCook Field. (24)
1950: KOREAN WAR. Through 3 August, the 374 TCG airlifted 300,000 pounds of equipment and supplies from Ashiya AB to Korea in 24 hours to set a new airlift record for the war. (28)
1957: Republic unveiled its F-105, a future TAC aircraft, to the public.
1958: In its first test, an Atlas-B, with a full propulsion system (boosters and sustainers), flew 2,500 miles down the Atlantic Missile Range after launching from Cape Canaveral. In this flight, the missile underwent the first successful stage separation of a US ICBM. (6)
1968: The modified XV-5A (now the XV-5B Verifan aircraft) made its first vertical and hovering flights.
1969: John A. Manke, NASA test pilot, flew the HL-10 Lifting Body on its first flight of more than 1,000 MPH. (3)
1985: AFLC rolled out the prototype FB-111A aircraft modified under the Avionics Modernization Program for electronics warfare. (16)
1987: The 552d Airborne Warning and Control Wing from Tinker AFB completed its 5,000th mission for the Elf One deployment to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Elf One began on 1 October 1980, when the war between Iran and Iraq erupted.
1989: The USS Tennessee successfully completed an underwater launch of the UGM-133A Trident II missile for the first time off the coast of Florida. (20)
1992: Operation INTRINSIC ACTION. Through 20 August, AMC moved forces to Kuwait in this exercise to show Iraq our resolve to support the Middle East. (16)
1994: Two B-52s from the 2 BW set an FAI record for an around-the-world flight during a Global Power mission to Kuwait. The 47.2-hour flight needed 5 aerial refuelings. This flight was a first too, going around the world on a bombing mission to drop 54 bombs in a Kuwaiti range near the Iraq's border. (16)
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From the List archives.
Thanks to Dutch…Your reputation around the boat was a big thing and this was a big part of it
What? An LSO with a sense of humor?
https://fightersweep.com/837/the-ultimate-carrier-break/
The Ultimate Carrier Break | FighterSweep fightersweep.com But when you break the deck, there is a little dispensation given for the strict parameters, the unwritten mindset being that with an eye towards being expeditious, and shortening – even if it's just by a few seconds – the amount of time the carrier must steer a dangerously predictable path into the wind, we are going to give this person a little leeway on the rigid parameters. |
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Don't miss the second video of the low level available at the end of this Landing
And thanks to Carl this is what it looks like when done well
Ah YES, day VFR traps-a Naval Aviators dream.
https://biggeekdad.com/2018/07/f-a-18f-carrier-landing/
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Thanks to Robert
IF THE DAMN VC WEREN'T PROBLEM ENOUGH!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpDnlGT3LxY
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Thanks to Clyde
747 Pilot Comments About Carrying The Shuttle
Well worth the read !!!
A quick "trip report" from the pilot of the 747 that flew the shuttle
back to Florida after the Hubble repair flight. A humorous and
interesting inside look at what it's like to fly two aircraft at once . . .
( I have decided to adopt one of "Triple Nickel's" phrases : "That was
too close for MY laundry!")
******************
Well, it's been 48 hours since I landed the 747 with the shuttle Atlantis
on top and I am still buzzing from the experience. I have to say that my
whole mind, body and soul went into the professional mode just before
engine start in Mississippi, and stayed there, where it all needed to be,
until well after the flight...in fact, I am not sure if it is all back to
normal as I type this email. The experience was surreal. Seeing that
"thing" on top of an already overly huge aircraft boggles my mind. The
whole mission from takeoff to engine shutdown was unlike anything I had
ever done. It was like a dream... someone else's dream.
We took off from Columbus AFB on their 12,000 foot runway, of which I
used 11,999 1/2 feet to get the wheels off the ground. We were at 3,500
feet left to go of the runway, throttles full power, nose wheels still
hugging the ground, copilot calling out decision speeds, the weight of
Atlantis now screaming through m y fingers clinched tightly on the
controls, tires heating up to their near maximum temperature from the
speed and the weight, and not yet at rotation speed, the speed at which I
would be pulling on the controls to get the nose to rise. I just could
not wait, and I mean I COULD NOT WAIT, and started pulling early. If I
had waited until rotation speed, we would not have rotated enough to get
airborne by the end of the runway. So I pulled on the controls early and
started our rotation to the takeoff attitude. The wheels finally lifted
off as we passed over the stripe marking the end of the runway and my next
hurdle (physically) was a line of trees 1,000 feet off the departure end
of Runway 16. All I knew was we were flying and so I directed the gear
to be retracted and the flaps to be moved from Flaps 20 to Flaps 10 as I
pulled even harder on the controls. I must say, those trees were
beginning to look a lot like those brushes in the drive through car washes
so I pulled even harder yet! I think I saw a bird just fold its wings and
fall out of a tree as if to say "Oh just take me".
Okay, we cleared the trees, duh, but it was way too close for my laundry.
As we started to actually climb, at only 100 feet per minute, I smelled
something that reminded me of touring the Heineken Brewery in Europe ..I
said "is that a skunk I smell?" and the veterans of shuttle carrying
looked at me and smiled and said "Tires"! I said "TIRES??? OURS???"
They smiled and shook their heads as if to call their Captain an
amateur...okay, at that point I was. The tires were so hot you could
smell them in the cockpit. My mind could not get over, from this point
on, that this was something I had never experienced. Where's your mom
when you REALLY need her?
The flight down to Florida was an eternity. We cruised at 250 knots
indicated, giving us about 315 knots of ground speed at 15,000' The
miles didn't click by like I am use to them clicking by in a fighter jet
at MACH 94. We were burning fuel at a rate of 40,000 pounds per hour or
130 pounds per mile, or one gallon every length of the fuselage. The
vibration in the cockpit was mild, compared to down below and to the rear
of the fuselage where it reminded me of that football game I had as a
child where you turned it on and the players vibrated around the board. I
felt like if I had plastic clips on my boots I could have vibrated to any
spot in the fuselage I wanted to go without moving my legs...and the noise
was deafening. The 747 flies with its nose 5 degrees up in the air to
stay level, and when you bank, it feels like the shuttle is trying to say
"hey, let's roll completely over on our back"...not a good thing I kept
telling myself. SO I limited my bank angle to 15 degrees and even though
a 180 degree course change took a full zip code to complete, it was the
safe way to turn this monster.
Airliners and even a flight of two F-16s deviated from their flight plans
to catch a glimpse of us along the way. We dodged what was in reality
very few clouds and storms, despite what everyone thought, and arrived in
Florida with 51,000 pounds of fuel too much to land with. We can't land
heavier than 600,000 pounds total weight and so we had to do something
with that fuel.
I had an idea...let's fly low and slow and show this beast off to all
the taxpayers in Florida lucky enough to be outside on that Tuesday
afternoon. So at Ormond Beach we let down to 1,000 feet above the
ground/water and flew just east of the beach out over the water. Then,
once we reached the NASA airspace of the Kennedy Space Center , we cut
over to the Banana/Indian Rivers and flew down the middle of them to show
the people of Titusville , Port St.Johns and Melbourne just what a 747
with a shuttle on it looked like. We stayed at 1,000 feet and since we
were dragging our flaps at "Flaps 5", our speed was down to around 190 to
210 knots. We could see traffic stopping in the middle of roads to take
a look. We heard later that a Little League Baseball game stop to look
and everyone cheered as we became their 7th inning stretch. Oh say can
you see...
After reaching Vero Beach , we turned north to follow the coast line back
up to the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF). There was not one person
laying on the beach...they were all standing and waving! "What a sight"
I thought...and figured they were thinking the same thing. All this time
I was bugging the engineers, all three of them, to re-compute our fuel and
tell me when it was time to land. They kept saying "Not yet Triple, keep
showing this thing off" which was not a bad thing to be doing. However,
all this time the thought that the landing, the muscling of this 600,000
pound beast, was getting closer and closer to my reality. I was pumped
up!
We got back to the SLF and were still 10,000 pounds too heavy to land so
I said I was going to do a low approach over the SLF going the opposite
direction of landing traffic that day. So at 300 feet, we flew down the
runway, rocking our wings like a whale rolling on its side to say "hello"
to the people looking on! One turn out of traffic and back to the runway
to land...still 3,000 pounds over gross weight limit But the engineers
agreed that if the landing were smooth, there would be no problem. "Oh
thanks guys, a little extra pressure is just what I needed!" So we landed
at 603,000 pounds and very smoothly if I have to say so myself.
The landing was so totally controlled and on speed, that it was fun.
There were a few surprises that I dealt with, like the 747 falls like a
rock with the orbiter on it if you pull the throttles off at the "normal"
point in a landing and secondly, if you thought you could hold the nose
off the ground after the mains touch down, think again...IT IS COMING
DOWN!!! So I "flew it down" to the ground and saved what I have seen in
videos of a nose slap after landing. Bob's video supports this! :8-)
Then I turned on my phone after coming to a full stop only to find 50
bazillion emails and phone messages from all of you who were so super to
be watching and cheering us on! What a treat, I can't thank y'all enough.
For those who watched, you wondered why we sat there so long. Well, the
shuttle had very hazardous chemicals on board and we had to be "sniffed"
to determine if any had leaked or were leaking. They checked for
Monomethylhydrazine (N2H4 for Charlie Hudson) and nitrogen tetroxide
(N2O4). Even though we were "clean", it took way too long for them to tow
us in to the mate-demate area. Sorry for those who stuck it out and even
waited until we exited the jet.
I am sure I will wake up in the middle of the night here soon, screaming
and standing straight up dripping wet with sweat from the realization of
what had happened. It was a thrill of a lifetime. Again I want to thank
everyone for your interest and support. It felt good to bring Atlantis
home in one piece after she had worked so hard getting to the Hubble Space Telescope and back.
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This Day in U.S. Military History
1865 – The captain and crew of the C.S.S. Shenandoah, still prowling the waters of the Pacific in search of Yankee whaling ships, is finally informed by a British vessel that the South has lost the war. The Shenandoah was the last major Confederate cruiser to set sail. Launched as a British vessel in September 1863, it was purchased by the Confederates and commissioned in October 1864. The 230-foot-long craft was armed with eight large guns and a crew of 73 sailors. Commanded by Captain James I. Waddell, the Shenandoah steered toward the Pacific and targeted Yankee whaling ships. Waddell enjoyed great success, taking six ships in the South Pacific before slipping into Melbourne, Australia, for repairs in January 1865. Within a month, the Shenandoah was back on the loose, wreaking havoc in the waters around Alaska. The Rebel ship captured 32 additional Union vessels, most of which were burned. The damage was estimated at $1.6 million, a staggering figure in such a short period of time. Although the crew heard rumors that the Confederate armies had surrendered, Waddell continued to fight. He finally accepted an English captain's report on August 2, 1865. The Shenandoah pulled off another remarkable feat by sailing from the northern Pacific all the way to Liverpool, England, without stopping at any ports. Arriving on November 6, Waddell surrendered his ship to British officials.
1887 – Rowell Hodge patented barbed wire.
1939 – Albert Einstein signed a letter to President Roosevelt urging creation of an atomic weapons research program.
1941 – Lend-Lease aid begins to be sent to the Soviet Union.
1942 – US troops are now being transported to the UK in the passenger liners Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary, and Nieuw Amsterdam. These vessels are too fast for standard escorts. Their routes across the Atlantic are based on Admiralty intelligence on U-boat concentrations.
1943 – The 10-day allied bombing of Hamburg, Germany, ended.
1943 – American naval forces bombard Kiska Island, unaware that the Japanese garrison has been evacuated.
1945 – During the night (August 1-2), 820 US B-29 Superfortress bombers drop a record total of 6632 tons of bombs on five Japanese cities including Hachioji, Nagaoka, Mito, Toyama and the petroleum center of Kawasaki. Most of Toyama is obliterated. Also, Americans claim to have sunk 26 ships in the raids.
1964 – North Vietnamese torpedo boats attack the destroyer USS Maddox (DD-731). The American ship had been cruising around the Tonkin Gulf monitoring radio and radar signals following an attack by South Vietnamese PT boats on North Vietnamese facilities on Hon Me and Hon Nhieu Islands (off the North Vietnamese coast) under Oplan 34A. U.S. crews interpreted one North Vietnamese message as indicating that they were preparing "military operations," which the Maddox's Captain John Herrick assumed meant some sort of retaliatory attack. His superiors ordered him to remain in the area. Early that afternoon, three North Vietnamese patrol boats began to chase the Maddox. About 3 p.m., Captain Herrick ordered his crew to commence firing as the North Vietnamese boats came within 10,000 yards of his ship; at the same time he radioed the aircraft carrier USS Ticonderoga for air support. The North Vietnamese boats each fired one torpedo at the Maddox, but two missed and the third failed to explode. U.S. gunfire hit one of the North Vietnamese boats, and then three U.S. Crusader jets proceeded to strafe them. Within 20 minutes, Maddox gunners sunk one of the boats and two were crippled; only one bullet hit the Maddox and there were no U.S. casualties. The Maddox was ordered to withdraw and await further instructions. In Washington, President Lyndon B. Johnson, alarmed by this situation, at first rejected any reprisals against North Vietnam. In his first use of the "hot line" to Russia, Johnson informed Khrushchev that he had no desire to extend the conflict. In the first U.S. diplomatic note ever sent to Hanoi, Johnson warned that "grave consequences would inevitably result from any further unprovoked offensive military action" against U.S. ships "on the high seas." Meanwhile, the U.S. military command took several critical actions. U.S. combat troops were placed on alert and additional fighter-bombers were sent to South Vietnam and Thailand. The carrier USS Constellation was ordered to the South China Sea to join the USS Ticonderoga. Admiral U.S. Grant Sharp, commander of the Pacific Fleet, ordered a second destroyer, the USS C. Turner Joy, to join the Maddox on station and to make daylight approaches to within eight miles of North Vietnam's coast and four miles of its islands to "assert the right of freedom of the seas."
1990 – Iraq invaded Kuwait, seizing control of the oil-rich emirate. The day came to be known in Kuwait as "Black Thursday." 330 Kuwaitis died during the occupation and war. Sadam Hussein, leader of Iraq, took over Kuwait. G. Bush led an inter-national coalition for sanctions and a demand for withdrawal. The Iraqis were later driven out in Operation Desert Storm.
1990 – By a vote of 14-0, the United Nations Security Council condemned the invasion and annexation of Kuwait by Iraq and demanded in Resolution 660 the unconditional withdrawal of Iraqi
Medal of Honor Citations for Actions Taken This Day
None this Day
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