Rampant Raider by Stephen R Gray

Author:Stephen R Gray [Gray, Stephen R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781612513768
Publisher: Naval Institute Press

In the winter months, from late November until March, the San Joaquin Valley resembles an elongated bowl of cream from an altitude of about six thousand feet. Nearly surrounded by mountains, the valley fills up with thick ground fog that only infrequently burns off. We used to refer to the visibility as being a “one-pole fog” or a “two-pole fog,” meaning the number of power poles we could see down the road. The VFR weather conditions we needed for FCLP training simply didn’t exist for weeks at Navy Lemoore. Consequently, two days after Christmas, my new car qual class launched for a hop over the High Sierra to NAS China Lake, California, for ten days of day and night FCLP training.

Alma’s school was closed for the Christmas holidays, so she drove over to stay with me, which made the deployment much more enjoyable. Several of the other married students’ wives also made the trek to China Lake, which is in the Owens Valley desert at the foot of the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada, and we had some social life when we weren’t flying. On New Year’s Eve, our instructors gave the married men the first bounce period after dark, and we all got together after flying for a New Year’s Eve party. The single guys ushered in the New Year by calling the ball in the FCLP pattern. We finished up at China Lake on 5 January 1967. On the ninth, the USS Yorktown was back on station in the Santa Barbara Channel for car quals.

Suddenly, I was a “must pump,” meaning that for some reason the powers controlling the RAG had decided it was essential that I be qualified and transferred to VA-212 ASAP. Accordingly, I got first priority at the deck. On 9 January I flew out to the Yorktown, got the two required day traps, launched after sundown, and got the four required night traps, boom, boom, boom, boom. After the last trap, I launched back to Navy Lemoore and was home at my apartment in Hanford by midnight. What a contrast to the first car qual period!

During this at-sea period for the Yorktown, an operational accident cost the life of the commanding officer of VA-125, a superbly trained and highly experienced carrier pilot. He was making a routine day landing in good weather with a calm sea. After a picture-perfect approach and touchdown, he caught the 3-wire. During the deceleration of the arresting wire’s run-out, the tail-hook spade snapped off and the airplane rolled off the deck edge. The airplane had slowed well below flying speed but was still doing nearly one hundred miles an hour as it dove off the deck. There simply wasn’t time to eject as the airplane nosed over and hit the water nearly inverted. There was also no way to keep the ship from running over the crash spot at nearly thirty knots. No debris surfaced to mark the crash site, and only a brief spot of foam marked the final resting place of this fine naval officer and aviator.

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