Officially Approved Nonsense

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Was that due to combat, or target practise?
Ha Ha!
Actually, supplying Special Forces camps in the boonies in the daytime, and flying "Candlestick" at night. Probably a little "Ranch Hand" (agent orange) thrown in as well. I'm told by folks who've been there that a number of C123s and A1s were lend-leased to Air America and ConAir to do some of the "plausible deniability" work in off limits areas where squeaky clean active duty USAF personnel couldn't afford to get caught.
 
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BTW, The body surfing on Pt Mugu coastline was outstanding (best memory of that Detachment)

The south-facing beaches of Vta County always brought up good waves for body-surfing when there was any weather off Baja.

It was before you served there, but when I attended Oxnard College one of my favorite memories was seeing P-3s plow through the gloom with their big lights on -- you'd see a glow gathering in the fog, and then, man, those lights were bright.
 
On the road into Pt. Mugu they have signs that say "Beware of Snakes." Now, there are no pedestrian walkways along there, so are those snakes big enough to be a problem for people driving in cars?

I have a hilarious video taken at a Titan 34D Launch in April 1986. The previous Titan 34D, in Aug 1985, had failed and there were complaints that the tracking cameras did not give enough detail. That was pure BS. The reality was that the fools had deleted a lot of the rocket's telemetry and lacked enough data to figure out what was going on. Tthey did not even have some of the basics. So they decided to request a P-3 come up from Pt. Mugu with Cast Glance equipment to track the next Titan 34D. So the April 86 Titan lifts off and as Cast Glance starts tracking , they start telling the pilot what to do. Then the T34D explodes while they are still talking. So the camera guy says, '"Okay, holy sh!it the whole thing just blew up!" And the guy says back, "Holy sh!t the whole thing just blew up." just kind of flat, like he was reading something.
 
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We had Mountain Lions at Vandenberg AFB. They occasionally startled the Security Police. For one launch we had an AC-130 up looking the area over for intruders. They vectored the SP's onto a moving heat spot. And they went to check it out and the AC-130 called and told them the object had suddenly circled around and was coming up BEHIND them; then they realized what it was.
 
Not sure this qualifies and will deny deny deny if called out..........

Flying airways in the mighty war machine P-3C Orion was mind numbingly boring......... Airways is when we would cross the little or big pond (Atlantic or Pacific), maybe at 250 knots, into a headwind....with a full load of fuel, parts, people and stuff. Think of going into a cold storage freezer for the next 8 hours. While flying airways (at least when I served), the aircraft had a 1000' of altitude separation unlike over ATC controlled airspace of 200'. So if everything lined up, the Pilots/Flight Engineers occasionally would allow a lucky someone (a lowly enlisted puke, sometime me) to sit in a pilot seat and "fly the aircraft without the auto pilot". We still had another real pilot and flight engineer watching EVERYTHING... When the aircraft was trimmed up correctly, you would just hold the control wheel and continue along our merry way. Anyway, there always was a group of "trouble makers" who as a group would walk to the back of the aircraft (think 1000lbs of moving cargo) and that would effect the aircraft trim.........so the new anointed pilot would have to push the nose down to keep on the straight and level, so the merry band of "cargo" would suddenly run to front of aircraft and now the Jr Pilot had to pull up to keep from departing the 1000' zone. The Jr Pilot always over compensating in pulling up and pushing down and then the real pilot would take over. The rest of the plane (at least those awake) aware of shenanigans are hoping they dont get sick from all the porpoising (one or two might be hung over). The trouble makers, now exhausted from having their exercise would go back to their hide holes all over the aircraft and chuckle themselves back to sleep. I might have about 4 hours of stick time in the War Machine P-3 in 2300 hrs of flying as self loading baggage.

This is how I remember things, the actual truth might be different..........;0

Timmy
Inflight Tech/Arm Ord
VP-92
 

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