Just out of curiosity - Airplane Guys

Today on the great VFT site.:thumbsup:
12Dec18-SB2C-Helldiver.jpg
 
Finally.... a video that does a bit of justice to the plane I spent most of my career working on.


The Navy had removed the Aardvark long before I became a Rescue Swimmer. However, on my first deployment with the Eisenhower Battle group, we had two USAF ground-based squadrons supporting us; an F-4 Wild Weasel unit and an FB-111.
We Swimmers trained to rescue the unique capsule arrangement of the F-11. The video briefly discusses this system. For us in the water, the capsule should float upright after an ejection. We were to swim up to it with both pilots still safely inside. There is a panel below the pilots that we are to open and pull out a lanyard about 25 feet if I remember correctly. This would give us a safe distance to pull which would then set off explosive bolt to remove the canopy above the pilots. The swimmer was to duck under water first.
Then we would swim up and either wait for the pilots to jump in or climb up and remove them if they were incapacitated.
The Airman who gave us the training told us that most likely we would not get a chance for a rescue like this as they have their doubts about it working over water. Fortunately for the Aardvark crews, we never had to try.
On another note, the airwing use the FB-111 as "Red Air" during training. The Tomcats would be aloft and await the Hawkeye's detection of the intruders. The Tomcat would go to full burner in a dive to intercept the Aardvark and usually never got close. Twice I witnessed the FB-111's successful strike on the carrier, once on deck and once alongside the ship in a hover. On deck, the two FB-111s passed astern the ship at 1.5 mach. It hurt! The two birds on the second pass while we were in a hover int he SH-3H was the same speed. We lost two of our flexible windows in the helo from the shockwave. It is an amazing sensation to have that shockwave hit you, but even more so when in a helicopter.
 
Cate Blanchett was great in the Curious Case of Benjamin Button also but the other Kate, Kate Beckinsdale (Ava Gardner) Is just Smokin Hot in any roll she plays.:thumbsup:

Agreed. Pity she only likes toy boys.........
 
Happy New Year to all!

I have found another fascinating YouTube channel: Jaloqua Malta (the meaning of which is a mystery to me). He has the most amazing collection of old training and other videos - here is today’s offering which I found unique and extremely interesting:

 
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