Then again, another one of my "happy places" is crouched on hard rocky soil with the smell of jet exhaust wrapped around my head with heat and jet blast pelting me with flying debris. Yes, THAT is a happy place as well. That, my friends, is NAF El Centro in southern California.
I've written about NAFEC before primarily because they have, hands-down, one of the best Public Affairs Officers on the planet. Because of her and the staff at NAFEC I get the chance, along with a handful of other equally enthusiastic aviation photographers, to sit ring-side at the greatest show on earth: flight line operations of US Naval and Marine Corps military aircraft. NAFECs mission is to get squadrons ready for deployment around the world and, because the flying weather is good to excellent most of the year, the intense flying schedules are easily maintained. In addition, squadrons rotate on deployments so there's always a good chance you'll see something new, just as we did on this trip.
You know you're getting close as the USMC Harrier IIs and Super Cobras bank hard over your head.
Ground-zero for the afternoon: the Landing Signal Officer's shack, a.k.a. the LSO shack. This is where the LSOs, responsible for guiding the aircraft to a safe landing on a heaving pitching carrier deck, stand in their work-up phase for deployments. The give instructions to approaching aircraft at sea ensuring they get a good trap, snaring the thick arresting gear cables on the deck and bringing the aircraft to a halt. On this day we are directly across from it on runway 8.
One of the activities that pilots take part in is something called "bouncing" and involves flying the plane around the pattern (often called pattern bashing) practicing their approaches, but often they will only touch down on their main landing gear and bounce back up for another go-around. An amazing bit of aerial ballet with an aircraft weighing upwards of 65,000 lbs. max takeoff weight.
Another part of the workup is getting the old bombing skills into shape, which is great news for us meaning they'll take off with us alongside for the ride. Sometimes the big boys, the Super Hornets, can give your stability a run for its money with their jet wash. This is usually accompanied by big smiles all around.
On of the great joys of the day was the appearance of the Prowlers: Vietnam-era designed electronic jamming aircraft based on the venerable Grumman A-6 Intruder. As if that weren't good enough they brought along their "color bird". Why other branches haven't embraced this concept is beyond me. What a wonderful way to get the word out about your flight program than a big colorful aircraft image shared over and over again!
The Marines were also there in force with both Legacy Hornets (older A-models) as well as their Jump Jets. You have to love the attitude of a pilot that wears ground-matching camouflage on his helmet!
And as if that wasn't enough we got the report that a squadron of Canadian Hornets was inbound from Nellis, some of them carrying the SNIPER advanced targeting pod!
And so we close yet another fantastic day on the line at NAFEC, pockets bulging with full memory cards and a fine coating of desert dust from head to toe and on every piece of exposed equipment. There will be many an hour spent in front of the computer, often accompanied by gasps or perhaps giggles from the images extracted, and fond memories of yet another day in the sunny desert of southern California.
A big huge thanks to the NAFEC staff for making this possible, you guys ROCK!
No comments:
Post a Comment