Tag: USS Midway
Aboard Midway, the Spad's radio report was misunderstood as one of the Spads having been downed. Greathouse finally convinced the carrier that they were fine, but North Vietnam was minus a MiG. "You've been had by a Spad, dad." It was said on the radio by a cocky, grinning Skyraider pilot to an...
"It grows on you. It smells like an airplane, it makes a lot of noise, vibrates, goes fast, it's real loud. You put it on like a glove. I'll never forget the airplane and it will always have a soft spot in my heart," CDR John Patton, former F-4 Phantom with VF-161 Taken on Mar. 25, 1986 aboard USS Midway...
Landing the Bird Dog on the deck of carrier without a tailhook was no easy task. Nevertheless Maj Ly Bung made an excellent landing. In April 1975 South Vietnam was in the process of being overrun by the North Vietnamese. The end of the decades-old Vietnam conflict approached, and many South Vietnamese desperately tried to escape the country before the...
LT Berg's biggest surprise on breaking out of the ever-lowering cloud ceiling was the sight of Midway, being so very different in size and layout from that of the comparatively newer generation of carriers he had landed on before... Let's celebrate Top Gun Day and the legendary F-14 Tomcat with this cool story told by Mike Crutch in his new...
George Duncan ramp strike has been used in several films including Men of the Fighting Lady, Midway, and The Hunt for Red October The impressive video in this post shows the famous non-fatal Grumman F9F-2 Panther ramp strike accident occurred as Cdr. George Duncan attempted to land on USS Midway (CV-41) in F9F-2 BuNo 125228, during carrier suitability tests in the...
Just as the A-1H Skyraider, NE/572 "Paper Tiger II" was being shot off a 1MC message came from the bridge, 'What the hell was on 572's right wing?' According to Squadron Historian Holt Livesay, on 4 November on the last mission of the 1965 cruise, CDR Clarence W. Stoddard, Jr., VA-25 "Fist of the Fleet" Executive Officer (XO) flying an...
One rule of engagement was constant in all these incidents: make the intercept as close as possible to 100 miles from the ship I was involved in four Soviet Badger and Bear overflights of U.S. Navy Carriers, on four different flattops – two as a pilot and two as a CIC (Combat Information Center) officer. I was a pilot attached to...
In the end, all 35 planes landed safely. When I talked to several pilots afterwards, they reported that they never saw the ship once. In 1972 I was on the USS Midway, CVA-41 (now a museum in San Diego). On a cloudy afternoon we launched 35 planes, a mixture of F-4s, A-6s and A-7s, into North Vietnam. Once the launch was complete...
