8 years…
Somewhere around 3000 hours… I started in P-3s sittin on the ‘rail’ as it was known…
Started in the left station as a SS (Sensor Station)2 operator, then qualified as a SS1, the second seat from the left. These are AQA-7(V)3 units, along with the rest of the airplane were highly classified back in the day, now… Totally unclassified! The AQA-7 used thermal paper that was ‘burned’ by the four little spikes you see above the lower control panel.
The real PITA was changing the ‘pins’ that burned the paper in flight, as they were about the thickness of a needle, and had to be inserted into the pins very carefully…
“Fun” to do when you were bouncing around…
And even more ‘fun’ was to accidentally stick your metal ten points too far down and catch one of the pens… You got a nice little shock, but it WOULD wake you up! 🙂
Long hours on patrol, some good, some bad. But the crews did what had to be done, day in, day out in all kinds of weather.
Those look like old-timey barber chairs with seatbelts.
Were you guys moonlightin”??
People who didn’t serve don’t understand – any of it – or the men who did it. They rested comfortably at home, they went about their daily lives, without once thinking of what it took to secure the peace.
And I think of that when I look at the politicians running for President now, none of whom ever wore a uniform. And the dope-smoking communist in the Oval Office who has done such damage to the nation.
I am strongly drifting to Robert Heinlein’s model where citizenship and the right to vote required service first.
+1
I take slight exception to LL’s comment….
Some of us who didn’t serve understand, and appreciate fully, the sacrifices made by our service personnel, and the working conditions they labored under.
I didn’t have anything to do with the P3 program, but I’ve worked on “other” Navy programs, and worried constantly that the equipment I worked on was operating properly and met all the specs before it went out the door.
As my department manager told one one of the techs that was whining about how “hard” it was to make the units pass ALL the tests, “How about if you go tell the guy’s wife and kids that YOU were having a bad day, and fudged the test results, and that’s why the unit didn’t work right and your husband/father was killed when he used it?”.
The tech shut up, and we quietly gave his units some extra QC before they shipped…..
Some of us do understand…..
+2
Call me crazy, but that does not look like a comfortable work station. But lots of buttons! Whee! Very cool.
I’ve got about 4000 hours sitting at that station. all in P-3C’s. I still have my ten points and my pre-flight check list book. The best place to sleep on long transits was under the SS1/SS2 stations as they had heater panels under the deck to keep your feet warm. Slip under the station, use your flight jacket for a blanket, pull your hat down over your eyes and you stayed nice and toasty. If you had an evil flight engineer who liked to keep the cabin temp down around 60 degrees the whole flight, the real estate under the stations became exceptionally valuable.
I Thank God for men such as you, and the rest who have served.
I had about 3900 hours in P-3s, sitting SS1, and countless on-top hours during the cold war era. I still miss it today. Ray, you’re spot on! Loved sleeping under SS-1/2 area. Any interlopers that tried to snake there way under the station found out how cold the it could get when you pulled floor heat circuit breakers and shut off the gear.
I received this a while back and thought you might shed some light. Good advice?
Sir, I am DJ Bxxx and I would appreciate it if you could tell me what It takes to be a fighter pilot in the US Navy. What classes should I take in high school to help the career I want to take later in my life? What could I do to get in the Academy?
Sincerely,
DJ Bxxx
————————————————————-
From: XXXXXX, X.X. CAPT USN
Anybody want to help this poor kid from Cyberspace?
“Charlie Oscar”
————————————————————-
A worldly and jaded P-3 Pilot, LCDR X, rose to the task!!
Dear DJ,
Obviously, through no fault of your own, your young, impressionable brain has been poisoned by the superfluous, hyped-up, “Top Gun” media portrayal of fighter pilots. Unfortunately, this portrayal could not be further from the truth.
In my experience, I’ve found most fighter pilots pompous, back-stabbing, momma’s boys with inferiority complexes, as well as being extremely over-rated aeronautically. However, rather than dash your budding dreams of becoming a USN pilot, I offer the following alternative:
What you REALLY want to aspire to is the exciting, challenging, and rewarding world of Maritime Patrol. And this, young DJ, means one thing….the venerable workhorse, THE P-3 Orion! I can guarantee no fighter pilot can brag that he has flown a mining run at 300 ft above the water, at 300 knots, while trying to calculate a means of justifying an emergency divert to Pattaya Beach, Thailand, avoiding shipping, and yelling at the TACCO, all while eating a box lunch, with the engineer in the back taking a piss and the navigator puking in his trash can! I tell you, DJ, Maritime Patrol is where it’s at!
Where else is it legal to throw hazardous material out of the aircraft, and not even give a crap what Greenpeace and the other tree huggers think! No where else can you crawl in the back of the aircraft and take a nap because you are so hung over that focusing your eyes takes to much effort!
And talk about exotic travel? When P-3’s go somewhere, they GO somewhere (usually for 6 months, unfortunately). This gives you the opportunity to immerse yourself in the local culture enough to give any natives a bad taste in their mouths for the USN and Americans in general, not something those jet jocks can do from their airport hotel rooms! As far as recommendations for your course of study, I offer these:
Take a lot of math courses. You will need all the advanced math skills you can muster to enable you to calculate per diem rates around the world, and when trying to split up the crew’s bar tab so that the co-pilot really believes he owes 85% of the whole thing and the NAV believing he owes the other 20%.
Health sciences are important, too. You will need a thorough knowledge of biology to make those educated guesses of how much longer you can drink beer before the tremendous case of the shits catches up to you from that meal you ate at that place that had the belly dancers in some God-forsaken foreign country whose name you can’t even pronounce!
Social studies are also beneficial. It is important for a good Patrol Plane Commander (PPC) to have the cultural knowledge to be able to ascertain the exact location of the nearest titty bar in any country in the world. Then be able to convince the local authorities to release the RADAR operator, after he offends every sensibility of the local religion and culture.
A foreign language is helpful, but not required. You will never be able to pronounce the names of the NAVAIDs in Italy, and it’s much easier to ignore them and go where you want to anyway. As a rule of thumb: Waiters and bellhops in France are always called “Pierre”, in Spain it’s “Hey, Pedro”, in Puerto Rico it’s “Juan”, and in Italy, of course, it’s “Mario.” These terms of address also serve in other countries interchangeably.
A study of geography is also paramount. You will need to know the basic location of all the places you’ve been when you get back from your deployment and are ready to stick those little pins in that huge world map you’ve taped to your living room wall, right next to that gigantic wooden giraffe statue and beer stein collection.
Well, DJ, I hope this little note inspires you. And by the way, forget about that Naval Academy thing. All P-3 guy’s know that there are waaay too few women and too little alcohol there to provide a well-balanced education. A nice, big state college would be a much better choice.
Good luck and see you on the Data Link! (if it works!)
Gosh, that’s funny !! However you left out the part about “packing, unpacking, & leaving needed stuff in a faraway place” !!
Would do every one of my hours again in a heartbeat. Would love to have one of those seat today along with a ready room chair. And Ray is absolute correct on the best place to sleep
We had a similar thing on the boats, a long time ago. You are correct about the shock! The thing I hated was changing paper, and the smell they produced while operating. Calibrating deltics was interesting.
Hymie- That ‘might’ have happened once or twice…LOL
LL/WSF/drjim- Yeah, it IS a different world…
Fargo- It wasn’t about comfort, it was about getting the job done. 🙂
Ray/Jim/SoCal- Yep, that was the thing I missed most about becoming a TACCO, I couldn’t slip under there and nap anymore!
Dammit- Thank you!
Chuck- LOL, and ALL true!!!
Glenn- Oh yeah… 🙂
Looks like a p3-b(Difar)
Mike- That it is, I just don’t know the BUNO..,
Ah, the good old days when military men were men, America’s enemies were nervous, and America was safe.
Now, alas, military men often are (or used to be or want to be) women, our enemies are safe, and Americans who still care about national security are nervous as hell!
Thanks for your service once again.
Murph- Appreciate that.
I understand the sacrifices made by our military.
Sadly many of us are unable to serve due to physical problems.
i was rejected due to my hearing a genetic problem.
I have family members that have served and I lost an uncle in Germany.