Back in the day, at least in aviation, we always relieved the watch a half hour early, but yes, even today, I’m early for any meeting unless something happens…
And this pic is pretty old, since the PO1 is in dungarees!
But the real fun was when we got to yank and bank down low…
180 knots, 45 degree angle of bank, 200ish feet doing MAD trapping!!!
Funny how when we did that with USAF pilots on board, they went aft and sat in the galley… Something about what was the wingspan and how high were we??? 🙂
Sometimes we even got to do cloverleaf patterns, which meant you did this five times to hit your weapon fly to point!
And this was one time the pilots actually paid attention to their flying! LOL
Stuff like this made up for the HOURS of rigging ships on the Maritime Patrol Tracks and especially the Rust Maru’s on the 209 track to Vietnam!
Yes, there are times I miss this, and the P-8 doesn’t have MAD, so they don’t get to have fun doing this… sigh…
My Dad was in the Navy at the very tail end of WWII. Not an officer or anything special. He was in San Diego when the Japanese surrendered. He spent quite a bit of his time in Guam as Shore Patrol, guarding the P-47 Thunderbolts from harm, lol. Always had a soft spot for them.
He was never late to an appointments – meetings, taking the time to leave early just in case something unforeseen happened. I wonder now if his Navy time taught him that – I never asked.