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USAF pilots

Started by Nikos, March 15, 2016, 08:32:07 PM

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Garibaldi

Quote from: PHall on March 19, 2016, 10:46:28 PM
Quote from: Garibaldi on March 19, 2016, 10:44:26 PM
I had quite a discussion with my unit historian on the way to a joint SAREX, at about 0615 this morning. Turns out that there were several tests done with RATO on C-130s during the Iranian hostage crisis in 1980. Not sure how classified the info is, but apparently, one other option besides the Desert One fiasco was to outfit a Hercules with some rockets, to facilitate a very short landing and takeoff in a soccer field. Lockheed did some testing, and due to the nature of the rockets, culled from various sources, had several arranged for landing, some for vertical, and some rear facing. The test was less than successful, but the idea carried over somewhat. Some of the older model Hercules still have the wiring but not the hardpoints for the rockets, apparently.

There's a video of that on You Tube. Search C-130 and should find it.

Sweet.
Still a major after all these years.
ES dude, leadership ossifer, publik affaires
Opinionated and wrong 99% of the time about all things

Spam

Wow, you guys really do ignore my posts, don't you. See number 50, above...

V/R
Spam


Luis R. Ramos

I know.  ;)

Could not resist when reading your post. Coming after my question I took it to mean it was an answer to my question about the use by the C-130 of RATOs in 1963.  ;D

When I visited Washington with a friend in 1990 or so we went to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum...

Among other exhibits, there was an Arado 234 with RATO bottles. One under each wing.

:D
Squadron Safety Officer
Squadron Communication Officer
Squadron Emergency Services Officer

Luis R. Ramos

Your post did not answer my question.

It answers the question of a previous poster, about USAF pilots being CQ. But from my point of view it is a recent decision.

The military was not that cooperative until recently. For a long time it was "I will guard my turf as closely as I can."

Navy and USMC did not freely do what Army and/or USAF was doing. And all returned the favors...

And I had already seen the Youtube on the other attempt to liberate the American captives in Iran. The use of the C-130 with the RATOs firing on all directions. This was in the 1980's. That crew was lucky to survive that accident.
Squadron Safety Officer
Squadron Communication Officer
Squadron Emergency Services Officer

Garibaldi

Quote from: Spam on March 19, 2016, 11:20:15 PM
Wow, you guys really do ignore my posts, don't you. See number 50, above...

V/R
Spam

D'oh!
Still a major after all these years.
ES dude, leadership ossifer, publik affaires
Opinionated and wrong 99% of the time about all things

Luis R. Ramos

#65
Spam-

I apologize if my reply to you was terse.

It was a good attempt at continuing a discussion of the C-130 capabilities. Let me bring the question.

As most of you remember, and some of you who served may have been involved in the rescue planning.

In the 1980's, the Iran revolution hit the US having the revolutionaries seize some students I seem to remember as hostages, and holding them for very long.

The US military tried two rescues, both failed.

The first one involved some C-130s, I believe 2 and 5 Sea King helos. At night, one of the C-130s turned into one of the helos, or viceversa, causing the loss of both aircraft in the desert and deaths of their crews. The operation was aborted.

The other effort also involved a C-130, the Youtube link that Spam posted. A C-130 was fitted with RATOs firing to the front, above, below, and the normal way. The concept was this C-130 was going to land inside a stadium grounds where the prisoners were held. To help it brake there were RATOs firing to the front and up. Then with the hostages inside it was to take off with the help of other RATOs.

During the trial, apparently an engineer in the test airplane fired the braking RATOs too soon, causing the aircraft to slam into the ground and it was destroyed. No loss of life.

Does someone want to post if in your opinion the operation of the C-130 as envisaged could have been successful?

Does anyone want to post a little more on what happened between the C-130s and the Sea Kings?

:-\
Squadron Safety Officer
Squadron Communication Officer
Squadron Emergency Services Officer

Spam

Quote from: Luis R. Ramos on March 18, 2016, 01:53:04 PM
Does anyone know whether the C-130 could use RATO at this time? Was use of the RATO ever contemplated for this type of event? If so, use at the carrier would have been dangerous?

Well, to answer your original question (above),

Yes, by the early 1960s, a range of US aircraft - Navy and USAF, with significant exchange pilot programs! - were operating with RATO/JATO bottles, including the C-130 (B and LC-130 variants). Admiral Byrd led the first bottle and ski equipped R4Ds (USN designator for the Douglas C-47) to the Antarctic in High Jump I during 1946/7, boosting off the deck of the USS Philippine Sea (CVA-47). Subsequent annual missions included bottle/ski equipped aircraft such as the Lockheed P2V-7P Neptune (which has a number of pics out there showing their bottle-augmented launches), the C-130B models, and finally the LC-130F/R models, also operated by VX-6.  After mid 60s testing, their aircraft were delivered in November 1968, and a few actually are still in service today with ANG units.

Here's a good pic of VX-6 tail 321, doing a JATO assisted takeoff from McMurdo in 1961:  http://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/igy1/medevac/kuperov.html.

The thing about using them on the boat is, there was just no demonstrated need, as the COD experiment showed. On one hop, they landed with reversers halfway down the deck, then took off fully loaded from the same deck spot, lifting off with a hundred or more feet to spare. No bottles needed.

Let me segregate my answer to your Desert One question in a separate reply, though, since that mishap had different causal factors than most bottle related mishaps.

V/R
Spam




Spam

My opinions on the Operation Eagle Claw mission:

It arguably failed due to a confluence of a number of factors: systematically poor maintenance of the RH-53 minesweeper variants used (multiple aircraft aborts), overly complex planning and unclear chains of command among multiple participating services (dithering at the FARP, Desert One, after maintenance failures had reduced the number of helos below the plan minimum of six), selection of the wrong H-53 variant (the RH version instead of the USMCs air-refuelable CH-53s, which would haven't required a desert refuel)... etc. etc. A brand new Delta Force (founded 1977), unrealistic training for the op (daylight, good wx only?!?), the list goes on.

The meta-level contributors to that Iranian mishap included the Carter administrations directive to avoid shooting Iranians, which tied the hands of the operators, and the general budgetary hamstringing of the military by the President and Congress in those post-Vietnam days of the hollow military. Thus, when they realized they were marginal, they had to wait (with engines burning fuel) for over two hours for Carter to make a remote control decision from the other side of the planet. From my POV, whenever you see this sort of environment from the top, expect to see these sort of catastrophes result. For example, first hand comments I get tell me that with almost no pressure being put on the bad guys after our pull out in the Rockpile, and our hands tied with stupid ROEs in the Levant, Bad Things are starting to happen again, with a resultant increased risk to our remaining operators there due to lack of support.  Post Eagle Claw, the country saw an AAR which led to specifics such as the standup of better organized, trained, and equipped SOF aviation assets and doctrine aimed at a broader range of well conceived, planned, rehearsed, and audacious capabilities (along with a commitment to better funding, at least for those assets). It concerns me that we've forgotten so many lessons, apparently, as a nation.


For CAP, I've considered using this as a good teaching lesson on ops planning and the use of the KISS principle, especially when we do SAR/DR with other agencies. Today, Garibaldi, LTC Berry, 3 cadets and I took part in a multi service SAREX here in Georgia with two other agencies where the overall IC/battle staff had completely overthought the rather simple target laydown, had imposed a rigid comm doctrine and ROE on their troops, etc. Good experience, and worth building on, and as I'm putting together my contributory AAR for them, this discussion is probably helping me frame my thoughts.


Backing away from opinions and sticking to the empirical:
The specific operational level problems which led to the mishap at D1 were related to what we call DVE (Degraded Visual Environment) disorientation and poor cueing, when after finally receiving a cancel order, one of the helos hover translated in the dust right into the tail of one of the tanker C-130s, killing and injuring a bunch of men. That we still, today, lose expensive aircraft and irreplaceable men due to DVE related mishaps has led to programs such as DVEPS, "DVE Pilotage System" for the 160th SOAR(A) which is aimed at fielding a combo of mmw radar and lidar sensors coupled to innovative pilot vehicle interface (PVI) design (that's my end of it) to enable our aircrew to not just "Own the Night", but also own the brownout dust clouds and whiteout snow/ice environment as well. I take it as a personal challenge as an engineer to attack this problem to not let our guys down by letting them have mishaps like Desert One, which was fresh in our minds when I was a cadet.

See:  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-03/army-commandos-first-to-get-bad-weather-vision-for-u-s-copters

Circling back to the original thread (grin) - the 160th also has a number of exchange officers, including one guy who resigned his USMC commission to fly with them as a CW4, and they can operate off of all types of USN assets.


V/R
Spam




skymaster

Quote from: Garibaldi on March 18, 2016, 01:04:20 PM
Well, he died a while back. He is known to several members of my unit, and 2 of his sons were in the program. He actually was GAWG CC in 1968. Ted Limmer, his name was.

Here is a link to an article, complete with pictures, of the actual test: http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/025982d.pdf

Here is a photo of Colonel Limmer (who had been an active CAP member since 1954) when serving as Georgia Wing Commander from 1965 to 1968:


Here is an image of Colonel Limmer when he was the Southeast Region Commander. He served in that position from 1968 to 1971:

Spam

Now, just watch... Kevin wont bother to read my long posts, again.  ::)


Heh heh
Spam


SarDragon

#70
More on Col. Timmer and C-130s, from a FB post [ETA - why do I think this might be yours, skymaster?]:

Quote from: David BrownGeorgia Wing has had many outstanding members over the years, but did any of you know that one of our former Georgia Wing Commanders was also a Lockheed-Georgia test pilot who was a pilot on a on a record setting test flight of a C-130 onto and off of an AIRCRAFT CARRIER? Col Theodore Limmer, a CAP member since 1954, and test pilot of Lockheed's P-80, T-33, F-94, F-104, U-2, C-130, C-140, C-141 and C-5A, served as Georgia Wing Commander from 3 March 1965 to 18 October 1968, and as Southeast Region Commander from 1968 to 1971. In 1963, he was the Lockheed check pilot and safety pilot during the famous C-130 Aircraft Carrier evaluation possiblility tests aboard the U.S.S. Forrestal. Not only was it possible, it was done in moderately rough seas 500 miles out in the North Atlantic off the coast of Boston. In so doing, the airplane became the largest and heaviest aircraft to ever land on an aircraft carrier, a record that stands to this day.

When Lt. James H. Flatley III was told about his new assignment, he thought somebody was pulling his leg. "Operate a C-130 off an aircraft carrier? Somebody's got to be kidding," he said. But they weren't kidding. In fact, the Chief of Naval Operations himself had ordered a feasibility study on operating the big propjet aboard the Norfolk-based U.S.S. Forrestal (CVA-59). The Navy was trying to find out whether they could use the Hercules as a "Super Carrier Onboard Delivery" aircraft. The airplane then used for such tasks at the time was the Grumman C-1 Trader, a twin piston-engine craft with a small payload capacity and 300-mile range. If an aircraft carrier is operating in mid-ocean, it has no "onboard delivery" system to fall back on and must come nearer land before taking aboard even urgently needed items. The Hercules was stable and reliable, with a long cruising range and capable of carrying larger payloads.

The aircraft, a KC-130F refueler transport, on loan from the U.S. Marines, was delivered on 8 October. Lockheed's only modifications to this production aircraft included installing a smaller nose-landing gear orifice, an improved anti-skid braking system, and removal of the refueling pods. "The big worry was whether we could meet the maximum sink rate of nine feet per second," Flatley said. As it turned out, the Navy was suprised to find they were able to better this mark by a substantial margin.

In addition to Col Ted H. Limmer, Jr. and PIC Lt Flatley, the crew consisted of Lt.Cmdr. W.W. Stovall, copilot; and ADR-1 E.F. Brennan, flight engineer. The initial sea-born landings on 30 October 1963 were made into a 40-knot wind. Altogether, the crew successfully negotiated 29 touch-and-go landings, 21 unarrested full-stop landings, and 21 unassisted takeoffs at gross weights of 85,000 pounds up to 121,000 pounds. At 85,000 pounds, the KC-130F came to a complete stop within 267 feet, about twice the aircraft's wing span! The Navy was delighted to discover that even with a maximum payload, the plane used only 745 feet for takeoff and 460 feet for landing roll.

It was a very interesting test to say the least! In Col Limmer's own words: "The last landing I participated in, we touched down about 150 feet from the end, stopped in 270 feet more and launched from that position, using what was left of the deck. We still had a couple hundred feet left when we lifted off. Admiral Brown was flabbergasted."

Even though the test was successful, the Navy still had some concerns about flight deck space, as the C-130 would not fit belowdecks, and might make the upper deck a bit too crowded for safe operations with a full complement of carrier-based fighters. Still, the test did prove, that if an emergency situation required delivery of urgent cargo in wartime, that a Lockheed C-130 could do the job.
Dave Bowles
Maj, CAP
AT1, USN Retired
50 Year Member
Mitchell Award (unnumbered)
C/WO, CAP, Ret

RRLE

Quote from: Luis R. Ramos on March 20, 2016, 02:08:38 AM
The other effort also involved a C-130, the Youtube link that Spam posted.

According to Wikipedia, that was Operation Credible Sport. The article gives the history of what happened to the aircraft.

Wikipedia's main article on the subject can be found under JATO. It states that the JATO/RATO assisted car is an urban legend.

PHall

Quote from: RRLE on March 21, 2016, 01:09:57 AM
Quote from: Luis R. Ramos on March 20, 2016, 02:08:38 AM
The other effort also involved a C-130, the Youtube link that Spam posted.

According to Wikipedia, that was Operation Credible Sport. The article gives the history of what happened to the aircraft.

Wikipedia's main article on the subject can be found under JATO. It states that the JATO/RATO assisted car is an urban legend.

As proven by the Mythbusters!

Mitchell 1969

Quote from: Spam on March 20, 2016, 03:22:59 AM
My opinions on the Operation Eagle Claw mission:

It arguably failed due to a confluence of a number of factors: systematically poor maintenance of the RH-53 minesweeper variants used (multiple aircraft aborts), overly complex planning and unclear chains of command among multiple participating services (dithering at the FARP, Desert One, after maintenance failures had reduced the number of helos below the plan minimum of six), selection of the wrong H-53 variant (the RH version instead of the USMCs air-refuelable CH-53s, which would haven't required a desert refuel)... etc. etc. A brand new Delta Force (founded 1977), unrealistic training for the op (daylight, good wx only?!?), the list goes on.

The meta-level contributors to that Iranian mishap included the Carter administrations directive to avoid shooting Iranians, which tied the hands of the operators, and the general budgetary hamstringing of the military by the President and Congress in those post-Vietnam days of the hollow military. Thus, when they realized they were marginal, they had to wait (with engines burning fuel) for over two hours for Carter to make a remote control decision from the other side of the planet. From my POV, whenever you see this sort of environment from the top, expect to see these sort of catastrophes result. For example, first hand comments I get tell me that with almost no pressure being put on the bad guys after our pull out in the Rockpile, and our hands tied with stupid ROEs in the Levant, Bad Things are starting to happen again, with a resultant increased risk to our remaining operators there due to lack of support.  Post Eagle Claw, the country saw an AAR which led to specifics such as the standup of better organized, trained, and equipped SOF aviation assets and doctrine aimed at a broader range of well conceived, planned, rehearsed, and audacious capabilities (along with a commitment to better funding, at least for those assets). It concerns me that we've forgotten so many lessons, apparently, as a nation.


For CAP, I've considered using this as a good teaching lesson on ops planning and the use of the KISS principle, especially when we do SAR/DR with other agencies. Today, Garibaldi, LTC Berry, 3 cadets and I took part in a multi service SAREX here in Georgia with two other agencies where the overall IC/battle staff had completely overthought the rather simple target laydown, had imposed a rigid comm doctrine and ROE on their troops, etc. Good experience, and worth building on, and as I'm putting together my contributory AAR for them, this discussion is probably helping me frame my thoughts.


Backing away from opinions and sticking to the empirical:
The specific operational level problems which led to the mishap at D1 were related to what we call DVE (Degraded Visual Environment) disorientation and poor cueing, when after finally receiving a cancel order, one of the helos hover translated in the dust right into the tail of one of the tanker C-130s, killing and injuring a bunch of men. That we still, today, lose expensive aircraft and irreplaceable men due to DVE related mishaps has led to programs such as DVEPS, "DVE Pilotage System" for the 160th SOAR(A) which is aimed at fielding a combo of mmw radar and lidar sensors coupled to innovative pilot vehicle interface (PVI) design (that's my end of it) to enable our aircrew to not just "Own the Night", but also own the brownout dust clouds and whiteout snow/ice environment as well. I take it as a personal challenge as an engineer to attack this problem to not let our guys down by letting them have mishaps like Desert One, which was fresh in our minds when I was a cadet.

See:  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-03/army-commandos-first-to-get-bad-weather-vision-for-u-s-copters

Circling back to the original thread (grin) - the 160th also has a number of exchange officers, including one guy who resigned his USMC commission to fly with them as a CW4, and they can operate off of all types of USN assets.


V/R
Spam

I had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Col. Charlie Beckwith, commander of that operation, and his intelligence officer, Wade Ishimoto in 1984. They were both quite open about the problems. Beckwith flat out blamed Jimmy Carter and his White House people most of all. The Marines were added to the mix for no other reason than to make it look like a joint operation. Equipment was insufficient. Worst of all, Carter insisted on running the operation from the White House, with advice provided by a chorus of eunuchs who's guesses and opinions outranked Beckwith's judgement in the field.

Beckwith had spent time attached to the SAS. He was quick to heap praise in the fact that the British had a system that basically said "Don't attend the drills and get critiqued, then don't expect a seat during the real thing." He was particularly complimentary of Margaret Thatcher.
_________________
Bernard J. Wilson, Major, CAP

Mitchell 1969; Earhart 1971; Eaker 1973. Cadet Flying Encampment, License, 1970. IACE New Zealand 1971; IACE Korea 1973.

CAP has been bery, bery good to me.

AirAux

Let me just say, that I salute anyone that takes off and/or lands on a carrier.  I think anyone that does so with a B-25 or a C-130 is not only a superb pilot, but a brave soul on top of it! 

Spam

All my traps and cats were manual/back seat... I understand ACLS helps, these days! 

V/R
Spam


LegacyAirman

Quote from: AirAux on March 22, 2016, 01:01:44 PM
Let me just say, that I salute anyone that takes off and/or lands on a carrier.  I think anyone that does so with a B-25 or a C-130 is not only a superb pilot, but a brave soul on top of it!

For some reason, that reminded me of this: http://vetshome.com/C-130.html

stillamarine

Quote from: Spam on March 22, 2016, 04:57:24 PM
All my traps and cats were manual/back seat... I understand ACLS helps, these days! 

V/R
Spam

Prior to going ashore for the Kosovo invasion I had the "pleasure" of going aboard the big deck on the COD. Yeah. I'm just glad I couldn't see outside. I may have peed myself a little.
Tim Gardiner, 1st LT, CAP

USMC AD 1996-2001
USMCR    2001-2005  Admiral, Great State of Nebraska Navy  MS, MO, UDF
tim.gardiner@gmail.com

AirAux

LegacyAirman, Thanks for the post.  I love it!!!

Spam

Quote from: stillamarine on March 23, 2016, 02:53:04 AM
Quote from: Spam on March 22, 2016, 04:57:24 PM
All my traps and cats were manual/back seat... I understand ACLS helps, these days! 

V/R
Spam

Prior to going ashore for the Kosovo invasion I had the "pleasure" of going aboard the big deck on the COD. Yeah. I'm just glad I couldn't see outside. I may have peed myself a little.

Ah, trapping on the COD: sitting backwards on the roller coaster wearing a cranial in the dark, with everyones heads going "donk/dink" left/right together as you fly the pattern. The last time I trapped in a C-2 (USS Stennis, mid Atlantic, marginal weather and high sea state) the guy boltered (he missed the wire, so we rumbled off the deck and went round) and the FNG sitting across from me started to unbuckle his five point harness and get up. "STAY DOWN, WE'RE STILL FLYING, WE MISSED THE WIRE" his buddy told him over the noise, and he went white as a sheet (because, how can you miss the wire in something that slow, right? Well, it was a poor weather day). His buddy and I winked at each other and played the "HEY, IF WE CRASH AND YOU DIE, CAN I HAVE YOUR LAPTOP? YEAH SURE, CAN I HAVE YOUR ____?" drill, which really sent the poor guy into spasms. We had to help him up when we finally rolled out of the wires and deplaned, and we spent some time at the mess, feeding him ice cream from the autodoc to calm his stomach.  "Welcome aboard, shipmate"!

(Naw, that's not hazing. That's Navy(TM)!

V/R
Spam